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Engineer Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) takes on the dangerous job of trying to stop the “Unstoppable” in Tony Scott’s new action-thriller. |
Seriously, how threatening and scary can a big, unmanned choo-choo be?
Let yardmaster Connie Hooper answer that one.
“A missile the size of the Chrysler Building!” she screeches.
OK. Now that sounds scary.
Tony Scott’s “Unstoppable” celebrates the old-fashioned disaster movie where human hubris and neglect conspire to threaten the lives of untold numbers of people.
“Unstoppable” represents the cream of the disaster movie crop, a smart and compressed dramatic experience pared down to its essentials.
It bends credibility just enough to bump up the action, but treats the whole story as one big Fox TV news report with a “You are There” approach that produces goose bumps.
“Unstoppable” is also a working-class hero tale, “inspired” by a 2001 incident in which an unmanned train zipped along the tracks in Ohio before being boarded and halted.
In Scott’s inspired nail-biter, a neglectful railroad engineer (“My Name is Earl” star Ethan Suplee) starts up an engine and lets it coast along while he jumps out, presumably to run ahead and switch the track.
Not being in great shape, he bumbles it and the train pulls out with nobody aboard.
How bad can this be? (Read more…)