By Marc S. Sanders
An adventure of the unexpected needs to start with urgency.
“Let’s say there’s a runaway train that’s barreling through the state of Pennsylvania and no one is on board to stop it.”
“Not bad. What else you got?”
“This train is a half mile long. So, it’s a roller coaster of a beast.”
“Go on.”
“How about there’s another train on the same track and the two are going to collide with each other?”
“It’s got potential. Anything else?”
“Oh yeah. The train is carrying toxic chemicals that could cause mass destruction and casualties of epic proportions throughout the rural area.”
“Okay. Now we’re talking. Any guns? Can we find a way to get machine guns into the mix?”
“Yes! I got it. How about if the people try to derail it and the only way to make that happen is the cops shoot at this tiny button on the bottom of the engine, and this button is located between the gas tanks? So it’s gotta be a direct hit while the train is in motion.”
“Okay. Okay. That’s genius. Let’s green light it.”
Now this might have been how Unstoppable, director Tony Scott’s final film, got put into commission, but what is especially fascinating is that this is based on a true story. An out-of-control locomotive actually went off with no one on board to control it. It happened within the state of Ohio about fifteen years prior to the release of this film. Only it was not as dramatic or suspenseful as Tony Scott and his crew assembled their movie. Unstoppable is a pumped-up, steroid enhanced reenactment of the actual story.
The director recruited his most common go to lead, Denzel Washington, for the role of Frank Barnes. He’s an engineer with over thirty years’ experience who is wiser than the big wig suits on the top floor. He can bring this potential disaster to a halt before it happens. Frank is also a mentor to the fresh, young conductor, Will Colson (Chris Pine).
Will is cranky because his wife is upholding a restraining order against him and the two are at a standstill of hashing their problems out over the phone. Frank is in a bad mood because the young guys like Will are being brought in to replace the grizzled fellows who are being pushed out. Frank is also a widower with two estranged daughters. Though, he gets a kick out of telling Will the girls are paying their way through college by working at Hooters.
Denzel Washington and Chris Pine make a good pair. Buddies who antagonize each other at first, they later share what’s eating at them personally and professionally. Then they work well together to resolve the crisis at hand. Their characters are not very dimensional, nor should they be. After all, it’s all about the train. Yet, I believed them as train engineers/conductors. Either of these guys could be operating a merry go round and I’ll believe they know some serious shit about how the carousel operates and moves in a circular motion. My point is these actors really work at it to appear like guys who are well trained within the freight train industry, and I buy all of it.
In the control center, staring at large monitors with high tech maps is Connie (Rosario Dawson). She’s communicating on the CB with Frank and Will and giving them updates on the status of when their engine will be within hookup range with the one speeding out of control. She’s also the figurehead with the smart mouth, needed to stand up to her bubbleheaded corporate boss (Kevin Dunn) who threatens to fire all of them. In other movies, this guy would be the angry police captain in a cop movie. He’d be the government official who believes he can protect the President while Kevin Costner or Clint Eastwood knows that’s not how it works. This is a slot role. Use the same dialogue for a guy like this no matter what the picture is about because it’s all standard stuff.
On paper, Unstoppable sounds ridiculous and quite ordinary for an adventure. A runaway train. Isn’t there anything else? Yet, Tony Scott applies his quick edits and aggressive zoom in and zoom out shots to the movie’s breakneck progression. He’s also got those curved Steadicam movements within Connie’s control center accompanied with glowing bright lights of greens, reds and blues.
News reporters’ updates, along with footage from helicopters, are spliced in between the scenes that Washington and Pine share together in the cab of their train engine. The glue holds up well. There’s time allowed for Frank’s girls to cheer daddy on while at Hooters. Will’s wife played by Jessy Schram holds their young son while nervously fidgeting and tearing up watching the news. I don’t think she has any dialogue beyond the line “C’mon Will!” Soon, she’s live on the scene staring straight ahead for the final act of the film. That’s a problem. I’m questioning why she’s looking in the same spot straight ahead if this train barrels on and on. It’s certainly not in a stationary position. She’s not watching a baseball game. No bother. It’s not fun to question a picture like this with such semantics.
The exhilaration comes in how Tony Scott sets up his action pieces with daring leaps on and off the train and running sprints on top of and in between the cars. Guys hang from helicopters with attempts to board the train. Cop cars turn their sirens on and speed parallel to the locomotive, and yes, as in any Tony Scott film, a handful of cop cars bang themselves up real good in some gritty pile ups. A gorgeous red pickup truck works its way into the story too.
Screeching sound effects are also necessary. They were nominated for an Oscar.
Perhaps my one complaint that’s hard to accept is that in some shots, the train, which is supposedly going at over 70 mph, doesn’t look like its going fast enough. Urgency is important in a film like this and when I get the impression the train is not traveling at a high enough speed, well then the threat doesn’t feel so threatening. It’s when there are shots underneath from an on the track perspective that you really get an idea of the exhilaration. In a movie like Speed, the bus always looked like it was accelerating and never slowing down. Here, the train seems to move slow enough at times that anyone could have just leaped on board, but as Miguel always says, “Then there would be no movie.”
Don’t go into Unstoppable with your Neil deGrasse Tyson laws of physics. Don’t get hung up on the wife who can see everything that’s happening by staring straight ahead when this speeding train is racing past her from right to left. Don’t worry. Move on. It may not look like it, but this train is going faster than it appears.
Just enjoy the ride, and relish in what set Tony Scott aside as a well-equipped and capable action director. Sadly, he left this world too soon. There were more fun action movies to be made by him. Unstoppable at least reminds you why he is still so sadly missed.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 