Unstoppable: Runaway train pictures are darn near as old as film itself (see also: Buster Keaton‘s “The General”). This film, inspired loosely by true events, is about the heroics of two train workers and their attempt to stop a runaway train barreling through the Pennsylvania countryside with a load of toxic chemicals. Our two leads are played by Chris Pine and Denzel Washington, as newbie and veteran rail workers that are thrown together by chance (that much is actually true; the two railmen that stopped the real train had the same experience gap). They are good together, but their characters are largely undeveloped (they are mostly stereotypes shoe-horned into a union-done-us-wrong subplot). Rosario Dawson plays the rail yardmaster tasked with stopping the train before it derails causing catastrophic damage. Director Tony Scott pulls out all the stops to jazz up a fairly plain visual (a train running straight on tracks isn’t inherently exciting), shooting it with a music video type flair: lots of choppy editing as Scott uses up his jump cut quotient for the year with shots of people anxiously staring at the train. Fine as a popcorn time-waster, but absolutely mindless and easily one of Tony Scott’s lesser efforts (compared to say the superior “Man on Fire” or “Enemy of the State”), though not nearly as bad as “Domino“. And the ending feels tacked on and unnecessary. Woodchuck sez, “Worth a look.”
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