A worldly "bad girl" wife, a naive husband, two too-chatty strangers, drugs, Russian cops and a very long train ride — that's a combo Alfred Hitchcock would be happy to call his own. "Transsiberian" is a paranoid, chilling train trek that borrows freely from the best Hitchcock pictures to give us that rare adult thriller — "adult" as in not based on a comic book or video game.

Brad Anderson, of TV's "The Shield" and "The Wire," sure-handedly directed and co-wrote this surprising, layered and well-acted travel thriller and rarely lets it go off the tracks.

Woody Harrelson is Roy, the rube hardware-store owner from Iowa whose church has just finished a help-kids outreach in China. Emily Mortimer is Jessie, his one-time "bad girl" wife, a photographer, a smoker and probably a little wilder than Roy can handle.

They've booked a trip from China to Russia across Siberia. Being friendly, Roy naturally strikes up a chat with two English speakers (Eduardo Noriega of "Vantage Point" and Kate Mara of "Shooter") who share their sleeper car. But there's something about these new travelers' experience, pushiness and the like that has Jessie's radar pinging.

An opening scene has established the East-to-West nature of the drug smuggling trade as Detective Ilya Grinko (Ben Kingsley, excellent) and his partner (Thomas Kretschmann) come across frozen bodies in Vladivostok. More foreshadowing: Roy's a serious train buff, Jessie takes candid photos, and a weary Frenchman has some words of advice for anybody riding the rails in the former Soviet bloc.

"Best not to tangle with the police in China, or in Russia. Especially in Russia."

"Transsiberian" tests Roy's mettle and his marriage and Jessie's bad-girl intuition. It plays with paranoia, guilt and crimes we wouldn't want to admit to. And there's terrific dialogue. Roy wants Jessie to quit smoking.

"Kill off all my demons, Roy, and my angels might die, too."

Detective Grinko is full of Russian-isms.

"In Russia, we have expression. With lies, you can go forward. But you cannot go back."

"Transsiberian" has its predictable stretches. But this trip serves up plenty of "I didn't see that coming" moments, packed into a vivid picture of roughing it, rail-style, in a snowy part of the world.