Imparable

Mark Bomback's writing was outstanding in using his 98 min runtime to squeeze in the perfect amount of character development, tension, suspense, and action. All casting and performances were excellent and Denzel and Chris Pine's chemistry was spot on. The S/VFX were amazing, as was the score. My big issue was the annoying and seizure-inducing fast zoom-in/outs director Tony Scott chose to use. Thankfully they became less frequent as the film progressed. It' an 8/10 from me.

This is an excellent movie in almost all respects. The cast does a very good job. The two leads play off of each other very well together and project good chemistry. The supporting cast is good as well and the movie even does a good job with providing some character depth (to the extent you can in this type of movie)- you do wind up rooting for them. The director has taken a good story, and matched it with excellent, I mean excellent, cinematography and takes us an every faster roller coaster ride. The movie is well paced, it keeps you engaged from the start & doesn't let you go until its over, and was just a lot of fun to watch. I highly recommend it.

Even though I did not care whatsoever for the fates of any of the stick-figure characters that populate Tony Scott's new movie "Unstoppable" and despite the fact that I still have some qualms with his directing style, I must confess that this new runaway-train movie won me over. It works on the principles of late afternoon escapism and it's quite efficient as a nail-biter. Kicking off to big bursts of kinetic action almost right from the beginning and lasting for a taut ninety-eight minutes, it proved itself as one of the more wholesomely entertaining action movies I've seen in the last half of the year.

The movie is based (loosely) on the CSX 8888 incident of 2001, in which a freight train ran amok and unmanned across the state of Ohio for two hours. Here the setting is switched to Pennsylvania and it's running at such high speeds that it threatens to destroy Stanton should it derail itself on an elevated railway and smash its toxic cargo. Of course, for the conventions of the action/escapism movie plot, we've got two troubled heroes who are just going through the motions of their not-so-happy lives when they assume the Superman personality and race against time to stop the train.

The train is the real star of the movie. More interesting than the people trying to control it. Director Tony Scott gives us several impressive and creative shots of the half-mile-long mechanical monster as it rampages around. Listen carefully to the soundtrack and amongst all the crashes and grinding sounds you'll hear noises reminiscent of the tyrannosaurus in Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park." The movie almost seems like a big-budget homage to Spielberg's early-career movie "Duel" in which you had an innocent man being pursued by a giant tractor-trailer.

The characters are modeled after Action Movie 101 Writing stereotypes. You know, the veteran and the rookie. One of them is splitting up with his wife, the other is having a hard time maintaining a relationship with his daughters. You've got the noble yardmaster wanting to save lives and the greedy, vulgarity-spitting corporate executive whose more concerned about how much dough he's lost. And, of course, it takes a major catastrophe in which lives are risked in order to glue everything back together again. And no, morbid as it sounds, I didn't care who lived and who died.

However, *however* the filmmakers are smart enough to play with this to their advantage. They do not waste any more time than they really need to with this flat caricatures and instead devote as much of the brief running time as they can to very gritty action sequences. I must commend Mr. Scott for his ability to coordinate his pyrotechnics crew. Although I still detest his overly extravagant dolly shots and irksome "quick zooms" (in which the camera inches in and out of people for no reason at all) he does hold your attention when letting loose a wave of inertia. The last quarter of the movie is consumed by an enormous, very intense action sequence that develops suspense and nail-biting tension reminiscent of "Back to the Future." Complications are thrown in and as they kept on coming, I gradually discovered myself nervously toying with the zipper of my jacket. He also does a fantastic job of balancing sequences with "Live Television" shots as news cameras record the incident.

"Unstoppable" is not a work of art, but heck, it's not trying to be. Movies are meant to be one of two things: art or escapism. "Unstoppable" is the latter. It achieves exactly what it is targeting: ninety-eight minutes of blood-pumping action, smart-alec dialogue, and a barrel of fun for all who participate. It's more fun (and less painful, for me) than any roller coaster I can remember being on at the fair. On the basis of it being a solid matinée thriller, I liked the movie.

Denzel Washington, as the wise old train veteran, is his usual self: sincere and convincing. Chris Pine is also in fine form as the goodhearted but troubled rookie whom he finds himself both bickering and laughing with. Rosario Dawson, an underrated actress, turns in another strong performance as the yardmaster supervising the disaster. And Kevin Dunn is sinister despite the two-dimensional character he's given to play. Supporting roles are played mechanically but well by Ethan Suplee, Meagan Tandy, Elizabeth Mathis, and Jessy Schram.

P.S., the movie almost shoots itself in the foot at the end, but just ignore that, as everything before it works just fine.

So, here we are. Tony Scott and Denzel Washington's latest collaboration is pretty much the definition of high concept - a runaway freight train loaded with thousands of gallons of diesel fuel, eight carriages of a highly toxic chemical and a worryingly curvy track ahead of it, versus two train operatives armed with little in the way of stopping impending disaster bar a one-car locomotive and their vivid imaginations.

It's not without its faults, but Unstoppable is a brisk, solidly entertaining thriller from start to finish. Scott has little time for characterisation or back story, preferring instead to kick things off via a pair of laughably incompetent rail yard employees roughly five minutes in, and then letting his leads fill in the blanks as we go along for the ride.

Washington and Star Trek's Chris Pine play it straight for the most part - their characters are the reluctant Johnny Everymen found in most films that rely on extended peril for thrills, and they've both nailed the mixture of brooding intensity and occasional comic relief that typifies movies of the genre.

Enough about the acting though - when you're watching a film of this nature, you want the action sequences to impress rather than worry too much about the story, and on this front Unstoppable delivers. Scott's track record in the field puts him in the perfect place to deliver the goods, and there's very little of the distracting, overdone camera-work that has plagued his recent output.

There's perhaps a little too much ShakyCam for my tastes but for the most part everything is shot with enough scope to be extremely impressive. The near total lack of CGI means the film looks suitably gritty and the pace is utterly, utterly relentless - there's no time to breathe here, just set-piece after set-piece with only brief conversational respites to quickly set up the next danger faced by our blue-collar heroes.

This type of film never goes down too well with critics and you can predict the reviews already - yes Unstoppable IS cheesy, it IS forced, it IS derivative and has all the depth of a puddle, but if you want to switch your brain off for 100 minutes and sit back for a magnificently enjoyable slice of escapism, you couldn't do much better. Highly recommended.

Released in 2010, "Unstoppable" is about a runaway train in Pennsylvania carrying toxic chemicals and the engineer and conductor who try to stop it (Denzel Washington & Chris Pine). Rosario Dawson plays the yardmaster that assists from headquarters while Jessy Schram plays the separated wife of the newbie conductor.

The movie's based on the real-life CSX 8888 Incident, otherwise known as the Crazy Eights Incident, which involved a runaway freight train in northwestern Ohio in 2001. Locomotive #8888 was pulling 47 cars, including some with hazardous chemicals, and ran unmanned for two hours and 66 miles at speeds of up to 51 mph. (***Don't read the rest of this paragraph if you don't want to know how the real-life incident ended before seeing the movie***). Attempts to derail the train using a portable derailer failed, as did an attempt by police to shoot at an emergency fuel cutoff switch, which didn't work because the button has to be pressed for several seconds before the engine shuts down due to lack of fuel. A northbound freight train took succor in a siding area where the crew released its locomotive and waited for the runaway to pass. Like in the movie, they had a crew of two: Jess Knowlton, an engineer with 31 years of service; and Terry L. Forson, a relative neophyte conductor. They proceeded to chase the runaway train and successfully locked on to the rear car of the runaway, then slowing it by applying the dynamic brakes or their locomotive. Once the runaway had slowed to 11 miles per hour, trainmaster Jon Hosfeld ran alongside the train, jumped on, and shut down the engine.

While the movie starts somewhat bland it quickly picks up momentum for a realistic non-stop thrill ride. The realism is refreshing in this day and age of cartoony action blockbusters and their multiple "yeah, right" action scenes (not that there's anything wrong with those movies, as long as you're in the right mode). Washington and Pine make for good protagonists and you start to care about them as the story progresses. Moreover, the movie doesn't overstay its welcome at a mere 98 minutes.

The film was shot in numerous locations extending from central Pennsylvania to eastern Ohio, which serve up a nice rolling hills backdrop with the occasional river. Minor note: You'll observe a woodchuck scamper across the tracks in one scene where he/she thankfully DOESN'T become ground chuck.

BOTTOM LINE: "Unstoppable" is worthwhile as a believable disaster thriller. While it lacks the potent subtext and overall greatness of 1985's "Runaway Train," it makes up for it with its realistic and kinetic tone, not to mention the fact that it's based on a true incident.

GRADE: B