Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
If ever there was a film pairing between director Tony Scott and actor Denzel Washington (the two have made five films together), you might think that the runaway-train thriller UNSTOPPABLE would be that movie. Scott is best known stylistically for a rapid-fire editing technique and basically never being able to keep his camera still. Even the films of his I like (CRIMSON TIDE, TRUE ROMANCE, MAN ON FIRE, DOMINO) seem like all kinds of overkill. Since Scott does mostly action films, his style doesn't always seem inappropriate, but UNSTOPPABLE is only about half an action film and even that half is confined to two, fast-moving trains on the same track going in the same direction. Here's the problem with UNSTOPPABLE: it tells us right off the bat that it's based on a true story, which I'll accept. I bet the true story is actually kind of interesting. What Scott has done is loaded this "true-life" plot with jet fuel and thrown a match on it, resulting in a film that feels fake when it wants so desperately to come across as authentic.
UNSTOPPABLE starts out beautifully. Denzel Washington plays Frank, a senior train operator in Pennsylvania, who is given the unenviable task of training rookie Will (STAR TREK's Captain Kirk, Chris Pine), learning to be a conductor (the guy that gives the operator instructions). They have a simple assignment for the day, so no big deal. Meanwhile, a couple of shining examples of the American workforce (played by Ethan Suplee and T.J. Miller) accidentally through stupidity allow a train to run out of the yard unmanned with the equivalent power of the pedal to the metal. Their supervisor Connie (Rosario Dawson), whose day job of being hot apparently wasn't paying off, begins what she thinks is the routine process of locating and stopping or slowing down the moving vehicle. But a combination of bad luck, human error, and convoluted writing makes this train ("the size of the Chrysler Building") carrying enough toxic chemicals to take out a small town a rolling missile.
After botching attempts at a controlled derailing and dropping a driver on the train from a helicopter, the company that owns the trains (represented by the thinly realized corporate type played by Kevin Dunn) allows Frank and Will to chase down the runaway train and find a way to slow it down enough to make a potentially dangerous L-curve in the middle of a community. I will admit, some of the action scenes got my blood racing. But in order to get to those scenes, you have to wade through some sometimes laughable sequences, like the horse trailer that just happens to get stuck in the path of the oncoming train. Sure, a train vs. trailer sequence looks great, but, really, it doesn't mean anything. It feels like fat that could have easily been trimmed.
Chris Pine has a backstory that involves he and his wife being separated. Why? I could not figure out what having a wife who's mad at you back home is supposed to make us care about Will. The guy does some pretty heroic stuff in UNSTOPPABLE; we don't need trumped up melodrama to make us care. The same goes for Frank's hot college-age daughters who work at Hooters. Why does their existence make an iota of difference to me caring about this very likable man? It's like Scott is looking for excuses to cut away from the far more interesting story just to get a few more reaction shots of people watching the news around town.
Chris Pine is once again solid as a man who got his job through family connections and doesn't have any real experience, meaning all the old-timers instantly hate him. Will doesn't exude the level of confidence that James T. Kirk does, and that's because Pine is smart enough to know that he isn't supposed to. Will is a first-day-on-the-job rookie who makes mistakes and kicks himself for every one of them. He's humble, easily distracted, and just flawed enough to make us believe he might actually die during the course of this story. Okay, not really, but maybe a little. One other notable supporting role is that of visiting line inspector played by Kevin Corrigan, who just happens to be visiting Connie's offices this day and offers sound advice on what the train is capable of. It's kind of nice watching Corrigan not play a role meant for comic relief for once. He's actually pretty good here.
Scott and screenwriter Mark Bomback has a story ripe for telling here, and they kind of blew it by piling on too many cliches, plot devices, and characters that simply don't need to be there. Not to overuse the metaphor, but they literally derail their train story by throwing too many layers on it. I did like the final few minutes that find Frank and Will somehow managing to get on the runaway train. There's no getting around that those moments are exciting as hell, but anytime the story leaves the two men or the folks in the control room communicating with them, the story falls apart. I didn't care about corporate greed or family members or other peripheral plot points. When UNSTOPPABLE sticks to its central characters and story, it succeeds as a fully caffeinated work of suspense.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcool.com
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