YMMV / Money Train

• Awesome Music:
  • Skee-Lo's "Top of the Stairs" for being an incredibly catchy beat to listen to.
  • Mark Mancina's score also hits the bullseye at times, especially during the part when the train successfully breaks through the barricade.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Many people took note of the sex scene between John and Grace, which showed Jennifer Lopez's bare breasts. Aside from that, there's not much about this film that's all that memorable.
• Designated Hero:
  • The actions of John and Charlie are not heroic at all, and yet they are played out to be the morally good guys. They risk the lives of innocent people, rob the eponymous money train (to pay off the debts of Charlie's gambling problem), and assault fellow officers on more than one occasion. They both get away with it absolutely scot-free and the villain is arrested for risking the lives of innocents — while this is an accurate charge, the situation would never have arisen had the main duo not tried to rob the train and stop the brakes from working simply so they wouldn't get caught. In any case, the robbery came at the expense of the New York City taxpayers! If the film had been done differently, it would not have taken many changes to the script and how they were characterized to turn John and Charlie into villains and Patterson into the hard charging, tough guy hero cop.
  • Grace Santiago is an accessory to their crime as well. Even though she didn't participate in it and both she and John also didn't know Charlie snuck a bag of over half a million out, she knew what was going on; said nothing about it; actively was rooting for them to not get caught and also encouraged John to go rescue Charlie while he was doing it too—as well as recklessly raced around the city too. She also arrests only Patterson for trying to derail the 1220 Coney Island and doesn't even arrest John and Charlie for assaulting Patterson either—something at least they were clearly witnessed doing.
• Designated Villain: Patterson. Not that he's innocent by any means — during the course of the film he behaves like a general Jerkass, racially abuses both John and Grace, fires John and Charlie on spurious grounds, and then endangers a passenger train for no good reason — but until that last part he still commits fewer misdeeds over the course of the film than the supposed heroes do.
• Fridge Horror: Patterson putting the 1220 Coney Island in front of the train and being willing to sacrifice ever passenger onboard is already bad enough, but it gets even worse when the thought occurs that had the Money Train continued and the 1220 crashed, he likely would've continued doing the same with other trains on the track again and again if he was given the opportunity to.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Every moment of Patterson being a stone-cold and vicious Knight Templar given Robert Blake ended up both accused and tried for his second wife's murder about six years after the movie came out.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • When Grace receives word over the radio that the Money Train blasted through the barricade successfully, she smiles; cheers and laughs in delight.
  • When Grace is arresting Patterson, she looks to John and Charlie briefly and smiles while pumping her fist.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: John trying to stop Charlie robbing the money train is ironic considering that Wesley Snipes went to prison for tax-evasion.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • John during the final fight with the Torch is able to turn his liquid and chemicals against him, causing the Torch to run in front of the train and get struck by it.
  • The climactic takeover of the Money Train has many:
    • Charlie's able to nonviolently take it over by himself for starters by means of holding the driver at gun point and then removing him from the train at the same time as the guards are transferring money out.
    • John racing through the station with his motorcycle—first going down an escalator at one point and then riding in front of another train successfully to make it into the tunnel.
    • Grace racing around the city to try to get to wherever the train's going next has her make big maneuvers while making good time.
    • When John shows up and guards appear nearby, he agrees to get the train moving again rather than turn Charlie in.
    • John and Charlie come up with the idea to bleed the brakes so that while it means the train can't stop, it's able to jump the trip line successfully.
    • When the steel barricade is placed in the track to stop the train, John and Charlie—while they at first think Patterson is bluffing—hit the high speed and they lay back and brace themselves as the train successfully blasts through and keeps going without missing a beat.
    • When Patterson puts them on a collision course with the 1220 Coney Island passenger train, John and Charlie realize the only way to prevent the 1220 from being derailed is to switch it to reverse, which will cause the engine to crap out and the train to do a "forty ton somersault" that they won't survive. John immediately is willing to do it and go out in a Heroic Sacrifice. In turn, Charlie insists he do it and that John leave the train so that no one else has to pay for his own mistakes other than him.
    • Charlie comes up with the idea to use a loose metal piece to arrange for the train's "autopilot". This involves Charlie sticking one end through the window and the other toward the lever so that when the train strikes the 1220 again, it'll hit the switch on its own.
    • John and Charlie climbing to the top of the train and jumping off onto the 1220 right after the train switches to reverse.
    • The train doing the "forty ton somersault" through the tunnel shortly after is also an amazing set piece as the 1220 successfully pulls into the station and avoids it. Patterson's face seeing "his" precious train crash so spectacularly is also priceless.
  • John and Charlie are able to avoid suspicion with the train by slipping into the crowd with the unloading passengers of the 1220, but when running into Patterson, play up the idea that they heard over the radio and are shocked, saying stuff like "what a mess". The Refuge in Audacity in that last bit also crosses with Funny.
  • Also crossed with Funny: After Patterson gets another insult in, John and Charlie punch him in the face at the same time. They hit him so hard he flies into the air before rolling on the ground.
  • Grace charges in and arrests Patterson for endangering and almost killing everyone on the 1220 and also gets the final insult in by throwing his politically-incorrect and condescending back talk from earlier back in his face too.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • The Torch early on crosses when he robs a woman while threatening her with a gas fire and then tries to kill her anyway for no reason other than his own amusement.
  • Donald Patterson when he choose to possibly derail a passenger train just to stop the money train.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Between some of the clothes, the lack of cell phones, the absence of the Metro Card system and turnstiles (which was already installed beforehand in several stations of the subway system when this movie was filmed), the fact that people are using cash for everything instead of credit/debit cards, the rate of crime in NYC, etc., it's pretty clear to someone watching today that the film couldn't possibly take place any later than the mid 1990s. Also, a theater marquee shows that Little Women (1994) is playing there.

---