CAST: Denzel Washington (Frank), Chris Pine (Will), Rosario Dawson (Connie), Ethan Suplee (Dewey), Kevin Dunn (Inspector Werner) DIRECTOR: Tony Scott WRITER: Mark Bomback
GENRE: Action/Adventure, Drama, Suspense/Thriller RUNNING TIME: 98 min.
Technical: 3.5
Moral: 3
CINEMA Rating: R 14 (For viewers aged 14 and above)
Thinking he had brought the train to a full stop, the engineer (Ethan Suplee) dismounts. But to his surprise, the train pulls away, under full throttle. On another train, veteran engineer Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) is training a new man on the job, Will Colson (Chris Pine). The half-a-mile long runaway train is carrying hazardous materials—according to the station yard master Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson) who is in charge of dispatch and operations—and is speeding towards a head on collision with the train carrying Barnes and Colson. To make matters worse, rookie Colson and veteran Barnes are like oil and water, bickering for control as the precious minutes tick away. Besides sidetracking the collision they know they have to set their mutual disdain aside in order to stop the unstoppable locomotive from hurtling towards a populous district of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
It might not be a good idea for people suffering from hypertension to watch this movie. It is such a superb thriller that keeps you at the edge of your seat—and your neck and shoulder muscles tense from beginning to end. Nearly all Hollywood movies these days come up with a chase scene, either for laughs or for thrills, and if it’s for thrills, the chase is usually between the good guys and the bad guys. But in Unstoppable, the chase is between people and a train! And as the sound effects and photography establish beyond doubt—particularly in those shots where the train rockets towards the audience over the camera placed on the tracks—the runaway train is a murderously heavy machine: having no soul, it couldn’t care less what it destroys.
It’s the people who provide the soul in the story. Barnes and Colson know that even with the right decisions, things could go wrong and thus spell their death. Nonetheless, in their race against time towards a possible tragic ending, they exchange glimpses of their family life which in turn enable them to bond and put their animosity aside. While the story and viewer attention is naturally focused on the problem posed by the runaway train, a softly voiced message is beneath it all: human beings thrive on the love of a family. Making Unstoppable more worthy of viewing is the fact that it is inspired by true events surrounding an incident on May 15, 2001 when an unmanned CSX train “ran away” and in two hours sped through 66 miles before it was stopped in a similar way as the movie shows. Perhaps young kids wouldn’t care to watch Unstoppable but CINEMA gives it a PG 13 rating just the same.
