Tony Scott’s runaway train thriller, Unstoppable, is the closest thing to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen 2010 has had to offer. Granted, it’s not as overtly loud and bombastic, but it’s certainly as dumb. I guess the difference here is Scott never seems to take things too seriously and Denzel Washington, a Tony Scott regular, brings legitimacy to most any film, no matter how dumb it is. However, don’t go looking for anything more than the trailer is selling you. A train is going fast and it needs to be stopped or bad things will happen, and that’s pretty much what you get.
Using the differences between an old school train engineer (Washington) and a new-to-the-game conductor (Chris Pine) to bring a level of humanity to the film, I’ll admit Scott and screenwriter Mark Bomback (Live Free or Die Hard) squeezed every ounce of life they could out of this feature, which was loosely inspired by a true story.
Of course, the true story it’s based on was a little less dramatic with the train hardly reaching speeds over 45 miles per hour, no kids were in harm’s way and the hometown of the lead characters wasn’t in danger. But when you need cinematic tension, the stakes must increase… exponentially.
Topping out around 75 miles per hour or so, the train in Unstoppable is just that. It rolls through whatever you put in its way and if the sheer size and speed of the train isn’t enough, it’s packed with lethal chemicals (that part actually is true). This setup follows the folks in the control room as they try to get a handle on things while the lead characters are unknowingly right in the monster’s path. The process allows us to get some idea of who the characters are, what their motivations are and why they’d be willing to help. On top of that, there’s always the big bad corporate America angle to think of as the costs to derail this sucker would be huge.
Rosario Dawson plays the local point person, relaying her messages back to corporate where Kevin Dunn (Transformers: Rise of the Fallen) plays the ultimate evil, the head of the corporation that stands to lose millions should worse come to worst. Ethan Suplee (“My Name is Earl”) seems to have finally been officially typecast, this time playing the dunderhead responsible for letting the train loose and Kevin Corrigan plays a rather entertaining train inspector that seems to have all the answers. On a whole, Scott was solid when it came to casting or this could have been… forgive me… a real train wreck.
Yet all is not forgiven, the comparison to Transformers is apt in terms of execution. Scott is known for his kinetic action sequences and jumpy editing, but this film reaches a point where the word “ludicrious” hardly applies. One scene features Pine caught between two rail cars as the doors fly open on one car, sending grain into his face at blistering speeds. Making matters worse, but completely unacknowledged by the film, a news helicopter is only a few feet away from the action, whipping its blades and causing the grain to tornado to a point you can’t even see Pine any longer. It creates tension for sure, but Scott fills the screen with so much mayhem, it may as well have been alien robots battling one another. Had the news choppers transformerd into Autobots and the train into a Decepticon I can’t say I would’ve been all that surprised.
As a matter of fact, Scott’s love for helicopters in this madness is akin to Christopher Walken’s need for more cowbell. They’re everywhere, and he just can’t seem to get enough. Plus he offers up an image of Hooters that’s like none I’ve ever seen, unless Hooters is now a chain of hip-hop clubs originating in Stanton, Pennsylvania. It’s plain silliness, and I laughed a lot and had a good time, but to call it a good movie is stepping over the boundary. The question is just how do you grade something you enjoyed, but at the same time acknowledge as trash worth only a one-time viewing?
Where Scott’s film ultimately wins out is he knows when to say when. Unstoppable clocks in at an hour and 38 minutes, and it would’ve been even better had he snipped 20 minutes more. Scott also seems to realize Unstoppable, and everything about it, is dumb. He counts on Denzel to bring the milk home, just as he did in Deja Vu, and Denzel delivers (even if I couldn’t get Jay Pharoah’s impression out of my head). Pine is serviceable and the rest of the cast works hard to sell what amounts to blockbuster junk. Yet, I was entertained on one level or another and that’s what we show up to the cinema for… Right?
