Unstoppable 2010

Another movie on runaway train but this time inspired by true story…

(Poster source: http://www.filmofilia.com)

It starts with 2 bungling railway staff (ya, what else?) who manages to get a fully loaded train (to make things more interesting, with 8 highly toxic cars attached) to run away without brakes (they could not find a couple of seconds to spare to attach the loose brakes) and without any driver at the cabin. And then add that with the runaway train running through several highly populated towns, leaving the town people praying for a miracle (which comes in forms of 2 “at the right time, right place” heroes).

How this could have happened in the first place you may ask? It is simple of course, the 2 bungling railway staff was given a simple tasks but due to a small dose of recklessness and plenty dose of stupidity, simple tasks becomes too complicated for these 2 bungling railway staff. One plus one ends up as three.

Then there is sub story of the corporate side of the railway company trying to minimize the damages that the company will suffer in terms for compensation and stock losses (especially when the highly toxic cars threaten to wipe out a whole town). Of course, there must be some kind of management who will make the stupid decisions that will fail at the end and that will be up to the heroes who go against the “company rules” to save the day.

And where an action movie would be without a senior, experienced, almost retiring, happily married with a couple of kids, hero (often played by a well known actor) who will save the day of course and to make this senior, experienced hero to be pissed off at the beginning of the movie would be some rookie - handsome, marriage in trouble, “sub-hero” (often put in the movie just in case the senior gets killed in the process of rescue).

Seriously, “Unstoppable” is really not a bad movie – we have Denzel Washington in the lead as the senior, experienced, almost retiring, happily married with a couple of kids, hero. So acting is first class indeed but that is not why you need to watch this movie. “Unstoppable” has one of the best scenes that involve trains and that itself is enough to attract enough interest to watch this movie.

The best scene in the movie is when they place a manned train in front of the runaway train and the plan goes awry. After trying to slow down the train from the front, the strategy does not work out and the front train derails, killing the engineer. The next plan comes where the 2 hero tries to stop the train by catching the runaway train from the back (don’t mind if the runaway train is actually traveling faster than the heroes’ train but somehow they managed to catch up). They hit the train from the back and somehow manage to stop the runaway train.

Final Say

Pros: Great train scenes

Cons: All too familiar plots - you may even ask “what is new?” and illogical at certain places.