Review: UNSTOPPABLE

The Fall and Winter movie season is generally the time for the very serious Oscar contender dramas, but every so often an escapist thrill ride will sneak in after Summer’s a distant memory. Such is the case with Denzel Washington’s fifth collaboration with director Tony Scott, UNSTOPPABLE. Although the film claims to be inspired by true events, much of it’s inspiration is the classic disaster films of the 70’s. Instead of having to deal with nature(the shark in JAWS) they’re contending with a man made terror with the potential of widespread calamity.

The films starts on a typical early morning at a train yard in New England. There, a new engineer Will (Chris Pine) meets some of the railroad vets sitting around a table discussing the recent cut backs over their coffee. Will has been assigned to learn from Frank (Denzel Washington), who is riding out his final sixty days there. Meanwhile Dewey (Ethan Suplee) jumps out of the front car of a train he is pulling out in order to manually push the rail switch. Unfortunately the controls shift and the train picks up so much speed that Dewey cannot jump back into it. The train is charging ahead without connected brake hoses and no one in control. As Frank and Will are taking their train out, Connie (Rosario Dawson)  at the control center learns of the runaway and tries to find a way to stop it. A visiting safety inspector, Werner (Kevin Corrigan), tells her the nature of the deadly chemicals that the runaway is transporting. Connie must also deal with the company boss, Galvin (Kevin Dunn)who seems more concerned with the bottom line than saving lives. After learning that the runaway is headed for them, Frank and Will must work together on avoiding a collision and stopping the deadly train before it crashes into a populated area.

It’s a fairly simple plot told with great style by action film veteran, Scott.TV news choppers constantly surround the train to give lots of exiting shots of what could be dull locomotive footage. Chris Pine builds on the movie star charisma established as the new Captain Kirk in last year’s STAR TREK reboot. His character is dealing with a crumbling marriage in addition to averting disaster. Dawson’s very believable as she becomes the men’s lifeline and co-planner. Dunn is hiss-ably slimy as he encompasses the  standard movie businessman baddie. The cold, down-sizing, corporate creep may be replacing the foreign terrorist as the movie’s go to villain in the future. And of course there’s the movie’s anchor, Washington. The weary railroad dog is tough with Will at first, but as the tension builds he warms up to the young man. Not only will Frank soon be unemployed, but he’s a recent widower who’s a bit estranged from his two twenty-something daughters. Frank may be up in years, but he’s got enough spunk to tell the company boss that his plan to derail the runaway will not work. And are you really going to doubt him? The movie’s got a great score and expert stunt work (shades of SILVER STREAK). Sure it’s not a big serious Fall movie, but it goes down great with a nice, warm tub of popcorn.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars