Plot: In a rail yard within the northern Pennsylvania town of Fuller, a pair of hostlers working for the Allegheny and West Virginia Railroad (AWVR) are ordered to move a freight train off its current track to make way for an excursion train carrying schoolchildren. One of the hostlers, Dewey (Ethan Suplee), chooses not to connect the locomotive’s air hose to save time; he does this knowing that the train’s air brakes will only apply on the lead locomotive, but decides to connect the hoses after parking the train on another track. Dewey sets the locomotive’s throttle at 100% in order to enable the train’s dynamic brakes, but sees that an approaching switch is not set to the right track. Dewey jumps down from the slow-moving train to line the switch properly. As he does, the levers in the cab fall of their own accord. The train picks up speed, and Dewey is unsuccessful in his attempts to reboard. It leaves the yard and enters the main line unmanned.
Review: I always look forward to the new Denzel Washington movie. I feel as though his role selection is methodical and down right appreciable in that he doesn’t seem to every take the typical action role or character role and instead seems to instead select films where the characters are more humanized than average for most Hollywood films. Unstoppable is a film that I happened to watch on the reliance that a movie with Denzel has something special to it as I went to the movie theaters and Tron was sold out and deferred to seeing Unstoppable and I must say that I was not disappointed.
The movie has a very methodical pace to it and allows for the audience to be slowly immersed into the story of the film. Tony Scott is an interesting director and doesn’t often receive the same accolade as his brother Ridley, but there’s certainly a style to his direction of movies that does not go unnoticed by this reviewer. By the time you realize that the train has run loose unmanned you remind yourself that it’s supposed to happen! It’s easy to get caught up with the Chris Pine and Denzel Washington’s interactions with each other as the veteran and rookie employees in the train yard and the back stories that go along with each of their characters. Their interactions and Denzel’s uncanny ability to develop a chemistry with just about any other character on screen go a long way with establishing a relation with whats being portrayed on the screen so it’s more akin to watching a show about a crew at a train yard rather than the actual story of the train running away.
Now I would imagine that it can be tricky to get an audience excited about a train running away under normal circumstances. No John Travolta waving around guns or bombs or any threats like that but it’s the realism of a potential real disaster occurring in Pennsylvania has that much more of an impact to the viewer because it really could happen! It’s this plot rooted in reality that helps give credit to the emotion and excitement of the train running away and add on the high explosive/flammable cargo in the additional train cars and it threatene to become the biggest disaster in Pennsylvania history. It’s these facts, coupled with good characters and acting that help make this an enjoyable movie.
The movie just may be too real, too methodical, and too slow paced for some. The anticipation of seeing the threat present itself is created from the moment you see the credits on screen, especially with a movie title like “Unstoppable” gracing the screen . It’s like watching a documentary on the discovery channel where you see the lion’s grazing and hunting, and are just anticipating the pounce. You want to see things pick up steam and see the gory action take place just to overcome the climax of the presentation. You want to see this train run away, and smash some things but first you have to get passed those pesky characterization scenes.
Overall I think it’s a great movie. Chris Pine gets a lot of credit for not getting overshadowed by Denzel and delivering a competent performance that doesn’t get lost in transition and Denzel is just Denzel and is great. Was it worth it to see it in theaters? Not really, but if you have a friend that has it on DVD, Netflix, or catch it on cable you can find a good 100 or so minutes of entertainment.
