Unstoppable

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.

Though this film has a pretty simple and straightforward story, it is still exciting to watch. It does well in establishing the normality of the lives of these railway workers and the rhythm that they work in. Scott does well in setting the tone of the film early on, and with the music accompaniment, the tension slowly rises.

Pine and Washington are good in their roles, and work well together. Perhaps it is because their characters do not get along well, which may be easier to portray. Anyway, their delivery and chemistry with each other fit the film. Dawson does well in roles with a sense of urgency to them. I vaguely remember her being an FBI agent somewhere else, and with this character, she is able to portray how intense a situation they're in.

I especially liked the cinematography and editing in this movie. With a high speed train moving through various landscapes, the numerous wide angle and aerial shots give a good view of the surroundings. The quick jump cuts, and juxtapositions between the various characters on screen also helps to keep the audience well informed.

One thing that I felt was a bit forced, was the family angle. I guess being characters, the filmmakers felt that they needed to incorporate family values, so put that in there. I didn't care much for the drama of Pine's life though. I was intrigued a little at what may have happened, but Pine's character didn't really fit the drama.

Overall, quite an exciting but simple film.

Unstoppable plays out like a basic action thriller that keeps us engaged the entire time. With the train as the center of the story, in a way we get transported back to the days of great entertainment, where the storyline is simple, characters pure, and the dialogue isn't overdone. Here is an action film that stays on track and keeps you glued to the edge of your seat until the high-intensity climax is over. It operates at gut-level mode, as we get to follow all the twists and turns of the main character, runaway train #777. Unstoppable is a summer movie action blockbuster released in a winter spot that doesn't pause for a breath as it picks up steam, and most likely you won't either. It's one of those mindless thrillers that was made so well you probably will miss a lot of the detail as the movie literally sweeps you away, which is what a great action movie will do.

Unstoppable is based on a true story that comes out of Ohio where we have a low-level employee who fails to set the air brakes on a train while changing tracks and the issues that ensue as a result. The director Tony Scott, no newcomer to the action genre, sets the stage for the high-octane second half by letting us get to know the 2 main characters: Rookie conductor Will Colson (Chris Pine) and veteran engineer Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington). The two both have their share of family issues, which adds to the difficulty of being able to work together initially. Another dynamic we discover is that the company is forcing employees to be laid off, as evidenced by the fact that Barnes is being replaced by younger engineers such as Colson. The 2 characters provide solid low-key performances and we see the tension that initially exists turn into mutual cooperation to work together for a solution, and then at the end, respect.

Solid performance also given by Rosario Dawson, who is both the eye-candy and sounding board for our heroes, planted where she can see all train activity.

As the movie progresses, we come to find out that this runaway train laden with toxic chemicals is headed towards heavily populated areas, and our stomach starts to sink about the devastating possibilities that may occur should everything go wrong. The plan? to link up to the phantom engine from the back and pull it the other way, coming to a full stop.

It is fascinating to watch the failed attempts to stop the train, which seems to add to the power, giving the audience a realistic idea of how "unstoppable" this train truly is with it's 10M pounds of force going full-steam ahead.

In the end what we are left with is ordinary men putting on extraordinary acts of courage. Where there might be chest-pounding there are a couple of family guys doing what they felt should have been done by anyone in that situation, and a humbleness that brings a more realistic quality to the movie.

I'm glad that the sensationalism was toned down so that the thrills that the movie had to offer truly thrilled me. As others have stated already, Unstoppable is truly a "Speed" on tracks and definitely one of the year's finer action movies.

7/10 stars

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.

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.