Unstoppable

Unstoppable

This is not to be confused with the extremely bad Wesley Snipes movie Unstoppable from 2004.  As far as I know, Wesley Snipes doesn’t kick the crap out of a train in that movie. 

A goofy train engineer played by Ethan Suplee makes a major mistake when he lets loose a huge unmanned train with chemicals onboard.  (That’s what you get for hiring a Scientologist to man your train.)  So, the train ends up roaring down the main line at high speeds and causes all kind of trouble.   The train endangers all the local towns in the area. 

So, yes, this is a runaway train movie, and it is a Tony Scott movie as well.  That means that we get a lot of shots of the camera zooming around and tons of helicopter shots throughout the movie.  We even get some of the same clichés that were present in The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, such as a bunch of bumbling police officers that make some stupid decisions.  Certain portions of the movie do feel like some of those late 90s action films.  Some of Scott’s fallback action clichés do hurt this otherwise entertaining movie, but not that much.  The script isn’t that strong either.

There are two major factors that elevate this movie from being a typical action flick.  Those factors are Denzel Washington and Chris Pine.  Washington and Pine (Sounds like an intersection where those names are streets) have outstanding chemistry together.  Washington knows how to play the teacher/mentor type and he does it well here.  The acting all around is top-notch, but the script isn’t that strong. 

The other positive thing about the movie is that this fictional train company feels like a real train company.  Being a rail-fan myself, I know most of the railroad jargon being spoken here.  Actually, the Allegheny and West Virginia Railroad (AWVR) is a fictional placeholder for CSX and BNSF railroad companies.  There are scenes where we get a true feeling that this is a railroad company, even down to the politics. 

The movie is loosely based on a real story of a CSX runaway train called the CSX 8888 incident (Crazy Eights).  While in the movie runaway train goes 70 mph, the real CSX only went 47 mph.  But, everything else in the story is pretty close to what happened in real life.

 Unstoppable is a flawed movie for Tony Scott, but it s certainly better than his other train movie.  There are camera movements and shots that seem a little too 90s for a 2010 movie, but the character development between main stars is spot on.  And, the action scenes are very impressive to say the least. 

Grade:  C+