A night at the movies can be many things if you’re lucky – filled with laughter, tears, love or awe. And during Halloween season, plenty of movies try to play on our fears, even as most horror movies are absolutely lacking in innovation of any kind.
This weekend, however, one new movie is certain to make viewers cringe on the edge of their seats for far more interesting reasons than the torture porn that drives the spurious appeal of the “Saw” movie series and its cinematic ilk. In the propulsive, harrowing yet wildly fun thriller “Unstoppable” – incredibly inspired by true events – Denzel Washington and Chris Pine (Captain Kirk of 2009’s successful “Star Trek” reboot) portray blue-collar railroad workers who team up to prevent an unmanned, runaway train packed with diesel fuel and toxic chemicals from derailing and causing more than $100 million in deaths, damages and cleanup costs.
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As the unmanned train hurtles through the small towns and farm land of rural Pennsylvania towards 750,000 residents near the city of Stanton, a jaw-dropping repertoire of rescue attempts involving other trains, helicopters, a special-forces soldier and countless track manipulations make this one movie that will cause high blood pressure in viewers who don’t already have it.
“Unstoppable” goes for full-throttle fun as its runaway train blasts through roadblocks and misplaced vehicles, is shadowed by multiple TV news choppers, and raced against by railroad workers trying to find ways to make it stop. Ultimately, it becomes a two-man rescue operation, as Pine and Washington decide that the only way to stop the loco locomotive is by reversing the direction of a train they’re on and hurtling fast enough to catch up to the runaway train, link it to their own lead car at more than 70 mph, and hit the brakes hard enough and safely enough to bring the train to a halt before it can resist derailing in the center of Stanton.
Director Tony Scott (“Man on Fire”, “Top Gun”) is hardly subtle at the helm of this film, but one can never expect subtlety from this master of big-budget action. The bigger the sound booms, the better the payoff as the train obliterates everything in its path and nearly even wipes out a couple of horses. While this is rated PG13 for its intensity, it’s certainly a film that any 10-year-old boy is clamoring to see, so make it a family night out for anyone that age and up.
The most amazing thing about this movie is the fact that it used almost no CGI special effects to pull off its impressive series of stunt sequences. Each one of its whiz-bang set-pieces would easily serve as the climax for countless other films, yet Scott and his team pull out all the stops to leave viewers gasping again and again in wonder. And in a classy move, the film also keeps foul language to a minimum and has no moral content that would cause anyone to be offended, making sure it’s literal good clean fun at the movies.
The obvious comparison for “Unstoppable” is to 1994’s trendsetting classic “Speed,” in which a madman rigged a bomb to a Los Angeles city bus and set it to explode if the bus slowed to less than 55 mph. “Speed” is an absolute must-see – heck, a must-buy – for anyone who hasn’t seen it, and moved Keanu Reeves from being a goofball comedy actor into leading-man action-hero status. But most of all, it launched the career of perennial favorite Sandra Bullock, whose portrayal of an average woman passenger forced to take over the bus’ wheel added a welcome dose of humor and female energy to the proceedings.
“Unstoppable” doesn’t have a similar female counterpart, leaving its actresses to take on the thankless roles of concerned wives and daughters. It could also use some more laughs to break the tension, but it more than delivers on the action and stunt front.
“Unstoppable” has everything the modern action fan has come to know and love in countless other movies: crowds of average Americans watching for impending disaster on TV and from highway overpasses along the train’s route and Denzel Washington as the one man who can solve everything through his calm detachment and wise opinions. Sure, the movie is unsubtle. Sure, it’s got an overwhelming array of rescue activity going on at once, but viewers can be assured they’ll be licking their lips with satisfaction the same way Washington always seems to when he grins as he’s just about to save the day.