How entertaining?     ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆

21 November 2010

This article is a review of UNSTOPPABLE.

By Hemanth Kissoon

"Tell Galvin we got two guys out on the mainline about to play chicken with our train," Connie

I’ve seen all of director Tony Scott’s films. Is that a good thing? On some level I am sure it is! I’ve grown up with his stuff. But let’s face it, his career is widely inconsistent. His back catalogue can be divided into four parts:  
1/ THE HUNGER (his debut); 
2/ TOP GUN to DAYS OF THUNDER (the formative Jerry Bruckheimer-Don Simpson years); 
3/ THE LAST BOY SCOUT to THE FAN (the interesting stuff, well, except THE FAN); and 
4/ ENEMY OF THE STATE to now (the erratic swings in quality). 
Scott’s best stuff is his striking first, a vampire tale starring the quite frankly awesome combo of David Bowie, Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve; TRUE ROMANCE; CRIMSON TIDE; MAN ON FIRE and SPY GAME. The nadir being: DAYS OF THUNDER; DOMINO; THE FAN; DEJA VU and THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123. Where does UNSTOPPABLE fit in? I guess the score above gives that away!

With a loud sound effect the opening thing we read on the screen is “inspired by true events”. The use of “inspired” fills me with dread. I would love to know how much is actually true. What we get is a runaway train without a driver, after some schoolboy errors, hurtling along. Only Frank (Denzel Washington) and Will (Chris Pine) seem to have the gumption to save the day. If a driverless train wasn’t thrilling enough, the filmmakers layer on threat after threat, but in such a comical way that this movie ends up funnier than DUE DATE. We are told it is half-a-mile long (how do you get your head round that kind of size by the way, the director doesn’t bother trying to give us that perspective), then it’s gunning towards another train carrying school kids, oh and now we find out there are carriages with hazardous material, and also it’s heading towards a populated area. I kept expecting Puss in Boots from Shrek doing his doe-eyed thing having his foot stuck in the tracks, holding a box of puppies. There is the nagging thought this all feels falsely tense.  If you enjoyed those schlocky 1970s disaster pics, this will be right up your street. Frank’s daughters work in Hooters. Did Michael Bay give script notes? Frank to Will, “Don’t get sentimental on me.” Too late Frank! UNSTOPPABLE is total mawkish B.S.

There are news footage cut-aways to frightened ordinary folks, and then Tony Scott does his pseudo-Paul Greengrass shtick where he goes seeming handheld, crummy documentary style. Maybe he should actually make a documentary and see that blurry shizzle is not a good look. Added to that, the dialogue is clunky, and the plot is by the numbers. Only J. J. Abrams in STAR TREK has harnessed Chris Pine properly so far. UNSTOPPABLE is a big budget TV movie, elevated slightly by the charisma of Denzel Washington. If you want to see a badass locomotive flick, check out RUNAWAY TRAIN with Jon Voight and Eric Roberts.

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