Much like director/screenwriter Brad Anderson's The Machinist, Transsiberian (his newest project) is a movie with the framework of a suspense thriller but a body that is more morality tale than anything else. Much of the film takes place on the legendary Trans-Siberian Express that runs between China and Russia, and that which does not occurs near its tracks. And between the time American couple Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer) board the train in Beijing and arrive in Moscow, the trip that begun as a straight path from A to B becomes an adventure that not only alters the course of their journey, but also calls into question the very lines they use to define their world and their lives.

Not a lot happens in Transsiberian. But the skillfulness of the film is that you still do not know what will happen next. Part of what keeps you guessing is never quite being sure of the true character of the film's main players: Roy and Jessie, fellow westerners Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and Abby (Kate Mara), and ex-KGB detective Grinko (Ben Kingsley). Even when we begin to discover more about where each character is coming from, the question still remains as to where they will go. And even though we may have certain assumptions as to who is "good" and who is "bad," the movie pushes both its characters and its audience to also question what it actually means to be good or bad.

Asks Detective Grinko as he gathers information about the drug smuggling case he is investigating, "Does a good girl do that? Murder a man and then deny it?"

Surround the almost rhetorical question with various acts of violence, lies that just keep piling up, and the almost reflexive tendency to begin judging the characters in relation to each other, and the question of what constitutes a good girl (or boy) just grows.

In the story, there are characters with dark pasts who have turned towards brighter futures. There are characters with bright pasts who have fallen into darkness. There are characters with dark pasts who continue to spread darkness all around them. And there are characters with bright pasts who make it their business to fill the world with more light. But as we see, even for those characters who seek to live good lives, it is almost impossible to escape the darkness.

"Fear can drive you to irrational acts," says Detective Grinko. So can self-preservation, desperation, even love. The question is, do any of those reasons actually excuse so called "irrational acts" from being bad? Is a lie okay if told to protect yourself or others? Is a hidden sin better kept secret if it allows the innocent to be rewarded and the guilty to be punished?

By the film's end, the final acts and perceived "truths" that remain are almost painted to be a conglomerate of necessary evils that come together to form a greater good. The "bad guys" get their due. The "good guys" are free to resume their lives. And contrary to the film's opening words—"Ours is not a gray world&ellips; good and evil, black and white, there is always a choice"—the film could be said to say that, in fact, this world we live in is very much one painted in gray.

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