Unstoppable
Action movies often take on many forms. Some are nothing more than visual spectacles that feature explosions galore and CGI out the wazoo, with little or no emphasis on developing the characters involved (cough Transformers cough cough); others take the time to actually explore the back stories of the characters in between gun-battles (the original Die Hard comes to mind immediately). It's an especially difficult task to have character development in a film that is blatantly there for us to get an adrenaline rush, mainly because movies like that tend to take place over very short periods of time, sometimes less than a day, so when an action film is able to find that equilibrium between story and character, it's a good thing. Unstoppable may not make the balance 50/50, but it comes fairly close.
Of course, when you have a veteran director like Tony Scott and a marquee actor like Denzel Washington leading the way, you do expect that actING will at times take center stage over the actION. This is the fifth collaborative effort of Scott and Washington, including last summer's disappointing remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. Thankfully, there's no OTT villain played by John Travolta behind the central crisis of Unstoppable.
If there is a villain in this film, it's the abject stupidity and clumsiness of two people. Two lazy, disinterested railroad workers (Ethan Suplee and T.J. Miller) make the mistake of jumping off a million-ton train in order to run ahead and switch it onto an adjunct track. Not only do they fail at this, but they neglect to set the train's air-brakes, and before long, the unmanned train is barreling down the track at breakneck speed, and carrying enough toxic chemicals on board to make life very unpleasant for the denizens of southern Pennsylvania.
Several abortive attempts to either stop or derail the train fail, so it falls upon an unlikely duo to save the day: veteran engineer Frank Barnes (Washington), a widower with two teenage daughters who is running out his 90-day termination notice, and Will Colson (Star Trek's Chris Pine), a young conductor just assigned as Frank's partner who, though knowledgeable, is quite distracted by a heap of familial turmoil. They are assisted by Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson), a local yardmaster who must decide to either help Frank and Will or capitulate to the will of her bureaucratic boss (Kevin Dunn) who wants them nowhere near the runaway locomotive.
Shot on location in Pennsylvania with very little (if any) CGI, Unstoppable is, hands-down, one of the more entertaining thrill rides you're likely to see this year. Kudos to Scott for finding a way, amidst the ever-increasing intensity of the situation, to develop the easily-relatable, everyman stories of Frank and Will, a couple of working stiffs with as much to lose as anyone in the audience. What dialogue there is is well-written and genuine, and Unstoppable is ever the better film for it.
Those who poo-poo'd Deja Vu and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 shouldn't just assume that this is more of the same, despite the presence of Denzel. Others have called it "Speed on a train". Well, as action movies go, there are worse films you can be compared to. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and I'm betting you will too.
4.5 / 5 stars
