After a virus-infected France, Belgium and the Netherlands a team of resistance soldiers fight to save a young girl who seems to be their last hope for a cure.

Transit 17 is a 2019 feature film from Vision Films and writer/director Guy Bleyaert in his sophomore directorial premiere. Another entry into the post-apocalyptic zombie archive, this thriller has an interesting plot and has been heavily nominated and awarded since its festival debut. This $1 million dollar budget action-adventure was the winner of Best Action Choreography at the 2019 Action On Film MEGAFEST in Las Vegas and Best Action Feature at the 2019 International Action Film Awards Australia.

By the year 2026, a virus has spread across Europe which has turned those infected into zombies. In what is now left of Belgium, an underground group of trained soldiers and tech scientists, who call themselves the Resistance, work to keep pockets of survivors alive as well as keep hope alive for a normal existence. When Tex (Guy Bleyaert) and his team of resistance fighters are told about a teenage girl, Jen (Maria Melikidze), whose DNA may hold the cure to turn the infected back to normal, they are tasked with retrieving her from her home in Transit 17, a survival outpost, and smuggling her into the United Kingdom. With funding from her rich father, the team sets out to complete their mission, but not without first running into obstacles of marauding militias, their broken-down armored tank affectionately called Pig, and the virus-infected zombies.

Transit 17 feels like a videogame, with its stock characters of hard-nosed military women, tech scientists, and hired soldiers. The beginning is basically one long videogame introduction where the mission is laid out, building a world of obstacles with names like “sniffers”, “runners”, and “jammers” before the audience is introduced to them by sight — show rather than expositional introductory telling would have helped the film make much more sense on this front. The shot transitions are abrupt and there was cheap CGI used to amp up the look of the guns, a hologram overseer, explosions, and even the blood from kill shots, which also made this have a strong videogame vibe — practical effects blood would have looked much better. All Transit 17 is missing are character POV shots to show that this video game styling was an intentional aesthetic.

Though the dialogue is often static, on par with one-liners from videogames and devoid of any monologues or in-depth conversations, the actors shone during the thrilling fight scenes — it is no wonder it has been awarded for this aspect. The cast is comprised of way more people than necessary! Starring in the lead roles are writer/director Guy Bleyant as the leader of the field resistance team, Zara Phythian as Eve who was one of his main right-hand men, David D’urbano as Rene a brilliant tech hacker, and Stefanie Joosten as Snow Rene’s tech associate. Though the predictable dialogue and the sound mixing — which was so low it caused words to be inaudible and evidence of dubbing can be heard through fuzzy audio distortion during some of the dialogue — failed the actors at times, their performances helped push through the cheesiness of the film; though some credit should be given, seeing as how Transit 17 is a low-budget indie project.

Sadly, for a movie set in a post-apocalyptic world after a virus outbreak, the characters spend a lot more time fighting humans rather than the zombie-like infected; there is only ONE scene where they are overrun by zombies! Though a video game-like movie isn’t inherently a bad one, whether intentional or not, Hitman (2007) and Max Payne (2008) are pretty good in fact, what’s missing from Transit 17 is originality, though it is not completely an unwatchable film. It is much more dystopian science fiction than a zombie movie so if you are a hardcore zombie-phile you may be disappointed, but if you are into films heavy on action and/or videogames then Transit 17 may be just the ticket to give you your next fix. Transit 17 can be found streaming on Amazon and Vudu, and the DVD release is scheduled for December 2019.