A new film by Tony Scott is habitually meet with derision of late, following a decade in the doldrums with such films as Spy Game and Man On Fire. Whatever happened to his heyday of daft action movies throughout the ‘90s, like The Last Boy Scout and Crimson Tide (let’s forget about his work in the ‘80s), when the films were entertaining, the characters were good and things weren’t taken too seriously. Thankfully, he is starting the ‘10s with a wholly unexpected but very welcome return to form. No longer under brother Ridley’s shadow (Tony is the better of the two), he brings back the ‘90s action movie with great élan in the form of a runaway train movie called Unstoppable.
Frank (Denzel Washington) is a seasoned train engineer given the task of guiding the young and troubled Will (Chris Pine) through his first day on the job. Things get off to a patchy start until their long and tiresome day is shattered by a huge runaway train. On full throttle and gaining speed, this half-a-mile long, million tonne freight train is speeding towards a heavily populated area bearing a cargo of explosive toxic chemicals. With only one hundred minutes until impact, Frank and Will do not have much time to save the day.
This is simple, does-what-it-says-on-the-poster filmmaking. It’s a movie about a runaway train, so leave behind all critical theories and literate preconceptions and allow yourself to be entertained. It is easy to be snooty about this kind of thing, but it works and the main reason it works is that you care.
It’s a film that is easy to get swept up in, largely due to the simplicity of the situation. As the train careers across the country it comes into constant contact with life on and around the tracks, one situation involving spooked horses. There is a clear credibility in these situations and, in many sequences, something extremely suspenseful. Yes, of course the horses get out alright, but you wince, you worry and you care.
Despite the odd moments of high-resolution digital blurriness and some unnecessary frenetic editing tics, the film is very well shot. The imagery is powerful and succeeds in conveying a frightening physicality in the movement of the train. Scott feels the need to mix the roar of a large animal into the sound of the train flying past in almost every shot of it, but he had little need. The strength of his shots perfectly detail what is once referred to as “a missile the size of the Chrysler building.” The simplicity of the situation and the raw power of the speeding locomotive combine to make intense and exciting cinema.
The characters in this kind of film are never going to be its calling card and Frank and Will are never going to be anything more than the people on the screen. However, for the length of the running time, they feel reasonably authentic. The film spends a lot of time establishing their working class credentials, almost to the extent that a lot of it can’t help but feel overtly political in its stance on big business. Be that as it may, Scott and his actors aim for the feel of the average American blue-collar worker and convince. Just as Rosario Dawson convinces as Connie, a higher-up with a lot on her mind. As do Kevin Corrigan and Lew Temple, an expert who can succinctly explain the plot and a gung-ho fixer respectively. In the kind of movie where characters don’t shine, these ones get our sympathy and respect. The film also has some good lines in it as well and it did raise a few laughs, most of which were intentional. However, the back-stories swapped by Frank and Will both fail to make them more believable characters, but by then, you are already swayed.
With Unstoppable, Scott has fashioned a clichéd movie, but one that feels fresh thanks to a thoroughly convincing bad guy (a big train) and some good character acting. Maybe it feels different due to the drought of good action movies in recent years. Looking back at the ones that really work, the unifying factor seems to be the simplicity of the narrative threat, and how much simpler can you get than a runaway train movie?
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