And another new movie path has begun! Having been to several drag shows and living near the big LGBTQ community in Chicago, I take for granted how rare in reality the positive presence of the community is in mainstream culture, especially movies. Usually it’s some weepy coming out story or hard bit study of cruelty to an oppressed population. Stop! That! Train! is wonderfully, neither of those things, probably why I loved it so much.
In this reality, the US has a giant interrail network across cities. The big train line everyone wants to work on is the Glamazonian Express, worked on by the best train hosts like Amber (Brooke Lynn Hytes), Alli (Marty Lauter), and Ayshleiygh (Symone). Poor Tess (Ginger Minj) and DeeDee (Jujubee) are stuck on Stank Rail, dreaming for their shot. Budget cuts and an unfortunate twins hookup complication gets the pair on a Glamazonian train from LA to Celebration, Florida. Just in time for President Judy Gagwell (RuPaul Charles) and operations specialist Donna Dusk (Rachel Bloom) to inform the conductors that a once in a generation Stormaganza is about to hit them from the front, also on the backside, and maybe right in the eye.
Stop! That! Train! is NOT a drag queen movie disaster; it is a drag queen disaster movie. John Waters must be so proud, crying then reapplying his makeup to see the next generation of what he’s done for filmmaking. We’ve progressed enough that the world is ready to just have a standard type of movie…just with drag queens as its stars. Anyone who’s seen a drag show or Drag Race knows how effing funny these people are…and how they were born to perform. They are never the butt of the joke, unless they want to willingly for a big laugh. And yet, the funnies can still be incisive and mean in the most hysterical ways. When Amber, Alli, and Ayshleiygh hurl insults at Tess and DeeDee and vice versa, the jokes are like little, very specific daggers, designed to hit their targets with expert precision. Legendary Ginger Minj and Jujubee have a blast sharing the leading spotlight, carrying the movie when it gets thin and elevating it when its flying high. Wonderfully cast against them are Brooke Lynn Hytes, Marty Lauter and Symone, oozing Mean Girl energy as Regina, Gretchen, and Karen drag queen parallels. The insult wars are ceaselessly funny, and Symone maybe has my favorite joke that scared the theater I was in I laughed so hard. Latrice Royale relishes being the gap filler character Barbara, the best joke runner in Stop! That! Train!. And like a proud drag papa there’s RuPaul’s President Gagwell, happily living in a silly subplot when we need to take a break from the main story. Each drag queen is fully their own thing, wonderfully specific and funny in their own ways, including their show stopping musical numbers.
The broad comedy instead is saved for the train passengers, featuring a cavalcade of great comedic performers ready and willing to commit to their bit. We’ve got the cameo crowd of comedy stars jumping at the bit to be in this thing, playing vapid rich socialites, repressed BDSM lovers, or gay Thurston Howell III types. Then there’s the gay support. Guy Branum is always welcome openly mocking Donna Dusk’s straight behavior, figuratively and literally. I wanted more of Matt Rogers as Gagwell’s Press Secretary, wonderfully deranged and untethered. Brian Jordan Alvarez goes the other way, playing the broiest bro that ever existed, with the body of Justin Bieber an the IQ of… Justin Bieber. Special props to Missi Pyle, forever going big or going home, Chris Parnell for being the perfect grounded silly narrator train conductor, and an incredible gag runner with a famous movie star who sacrifices herself on the alter of dignity, over and over again, for bigger and bigger laughs. Best of all, all of these people COULD lead this movie, but don’t even try to; they stay in their lane, helping smooth over the “overlong SNL sketch” and “shoddy production” critiques of Stop! That! Train! that are present, but never overwhelm the laughter onscreen.
Welcome to a new world y’all. I for one, want this group of performers to become the new Airplane! like spoofers. Can you imagine their drag queen scifi movie? Or their Scary Movie? More importantly, we’re probably not far away from “the Oscar goes to…Monet X Change!” as a real sentence that might happen in this lifetime! How exciting!