Directed by Tony Scott
Based on a disastrous incident that actually happened in America, this film really has three main characters – veteran train drive Frank Barns (Denzel Washington), his newly trained partner Will Colson (Chris Pine) and a half-mile long train. Nicknamed ‘The Beast’, the train is carrying volatile chemicals and gathering speed across the state of Pennsylvania without a driver on board. The film starts slowly enough with a series of misjudgements and bad luck for a bumbling rail worker (Ethan Suplee) but the drama quickly takes off as 1,000,000 tons of unstoppable train threaten to impact on 100,000 lives in just less than 100 minutes.
Tony Scott, who has been making successful action films since Top Gun (1986), goes back to the old-fashioned methods for building suspense rather than relying on CGI to assault the audience. As the monstrous train gathers momentum, Scott spends a considerable time developing the character dynamics. Firstly the veteran and the rookie need to sort out their differences. Then the workers at various levels have to do battle with the next level of management, revealing what can happen when a business is run solely for financial gains. Rapid decisions have to be made as increasingly larger populations become threatened and the main battle rages between the female control room operator (Rosario Dawson) and the boss (Kevin Dunn) as precious seconds tick past.
Unstoppable is quite a cerebral film, as the audience, when they are not holding their breaths, tries to weigh up the alternatives and work out the best way to stop ‘The Beast’. A couple of well-timed explosions and a few hair-raising stunts keep the tension as the editing and music keep pace with the speeding train. Some of the outcomes might seem predictable but it is a great ride. Make sure you catch this runaway film, and remember to breathe.
Lezly Herbert
***
