Review: Transit 17

Director: Guy Bleyaert

Screenplay: Guy Bleyaert

Year: 2019

I have to admit that after seeing that Guy Bleyaert (“The Last Inquisitors”) directed, wrote, and starred this movie, some alarms went off and made me expect the worst of this movie, Luckily, Bleyaert  doesn’t try to feed his ego in this roles and does a good and harmonized job in all of them. The plot for “Transit 17” is a common one for apocalyptic or dystopian movies, where a group of human survivors fights for control and available resources to survive, to what a deadly disease to which they try to find a cure is added to the mix.

In “Transit 17” a virus has whipped out a good amount of the European population by turning them in ferocious zombies. In the middle of this chaos, general Ratzinger has taken control of what’s left of humanity by using military force, but a Resistance has risen against him. This Resistance has found a girl that was bitten by a zombie but didn’t turn into one and they try to transport her to a safe place with hopes that she might be the key to finding a cure.

For this movie having been worked and promoted as a zombie movie, they don’t show up much. The plot is heavily influenced by their presence and their ravages, but we can only see them in action for about a scarce 10 minutes and is a shame, as their makeup and presentation are great. This first and only appearance by the zombies happens early in the movie, just after a reference to the movie “La Horde”, which raises expectations that are never met in this regard.

Most of this movie is handled as an action movie, where the focus if the confrontation between the army that controls humanity and the Resistance. This leads to having several action scenes, where the good combat sequences stand out but, as often happens with low budget movies (this one was made for about $1,000,000), the CGI effects leave much to be desired. Another minor problem this movie shows is sound editing, where some sounds make no sense whit what is happening, for example, the tires of a car screeching while they are driving on mud.

The cast of “Transit 17” does a good job, that is impulse by good direction and a script that, although it has some bad dialog lines, is fairly well written. Besides Guy Bleyaert, this movie is starred by Zara Phythian (“Doctor Strange”) and Silvio Simac (“Transporter 3”), this las one known for his martial arts skills and participating in several movies where he showcases them, and this is no exception. Action scenes are one of the virtues of this movie, and they make great use of them.

“Transit 17” is an interesting mix of the actions, science fiction, and horror genres that makes it feel like a videogame, but that presents a lot less horror than what it promises. It suffers a bit from having a fast pace and unfocused in parts, and from some technical flaws proper of having a limited budget, but ends up being an entertaining movie in which a great use of budget and resources is shown.

Vision Films will make “Transit 17” available on digital platforms on October 22, 2019, and on DVD on December 17, 2019. For more information visit the movie’s web page.