It's tempting to dismiss "Unstoppable" as nothing more than pure adrenaline-rush entertainment. "'Speed' on a train" has been a common refrain. That "Unstoppable" is, first and foremost, pure adrenaline-rush entertainment makes outright dismissal all the more tempting. Director Tony Scott and Denzel Washington have teamed up again for another frenetic train-based pulse-pounder, and result may be Scott's most solid work since "Man on Fire". That's not to say that "Unstoppable" is some sort of secret intellectual masterpiece, or even a moderately great movie. But it does do what it sets out to do with exceptional gusto. If you're looking for an exciting, straightforward, suspenseful yarn that does your thinking for you, you've come to the right place.
But wait - it's also tempting to attempt to dissect a movie like this in search of perhaps unintentional sociological clues. You know - elements that film historians and other such intellectuals analyze in pursuit of finding how a film informs us about ourselves, and/or the culture and time it's a product of. "Unstoppable", with it's classical blue-collar all-American characters and locales (the rustically cluttered yet sometimes vast rural east coast), lends itself particularly well to this sort of process. The same tenants held true about Scott's now-iconic power-pop entertainment "Top Gun" - the film resonated with audiences on a pure action level at the time, and has since become one of the sociological go-to films about the 1980s. Although its leading men, Washington and Chris Pine ("Star Trek") lack the celebrity super nova heat of late 1980s Tom Cruise, "Unstoppable" no doubt offers plenty of grist for the sociological mill. After all, with the economic crisis, rampant unemployment, failed government stimulus plans and multiple military actions being juggled overseas, America itself has been compared to a runaway train on more than one occasion. The fact that this one is gonna blow is all the more apt.
Unlike Jan De Bont's "Speed", "Unstoppable" lacks an out-and-out villain. There is no Dennis Hopper character responsible for the highly explosive vehicle of mass transit that is careening out of control. None but corporate apathy and lazy distain - the kind of mentality that has chronically infected the machine of corporate capitalism - personified by a single overweight train yard employee who makes a few bad decisions and before you know it, we're off and running. If apathy mixed with arrogance is to blame for causing the problem, then the overly dollar-conscious mentality of the rail line executives is to blame for letting it rocket into a full blown crisis. By not derailing the train in the middle of nowhere early on in the interest of not losing an expensive locomotive, they of course ultimately rack up all manner of tremendously worse expenses and potentially dire consequences. (Based on a true story.)
Ordinarily the use of TV news cutaways is a lazy expository cheat, but here, Scott's heavy use of it (all Fox News updates in this 20th Century Fox production, thank you corporate synergy) works on two fronts. Primarily, it adequately serves as narrative shorthand, which means fewer scenes of frazzled people in control rooms yelling redundant information into phones and at each other for the audience's benefit. Secondly, the obnoxious rapid-fire bombardment of cable news actually compliments Scott's manic aesthetic, which is in a positive groove this time around. Somehow, frequent cutaways to full screen up-to-the-minute reports feel right in this supposed fact based story. The device is not only practical; it's cohesive with the director's style, and frenetically authentic for the time and place of the film. For better or for worse, Scott seems to know that not only do modern audiences to want watch the conventional action of the characters doing their thing, but they also want to see the up-to-the-minute reports and on-the-fly expert analysis. It's almost the cinematic equivalent of watching a live sporting event on TV while attending it in person.
With the flag-waving brownstones and in-your-face media saturation, Scott is clearly taking this opportunity to turn a mirror upon the modern failings of the western world. But the condemnation is wisely shrouded in a conventional Hollywood veneer of "triumph of the common man". "Unstoppable" may be telling us that yes, our system is out of control, but by working together it is possible fix it. In a more of-the-moment observation, it's interesting to note that officials, beaurocrats and higher-ups can do nothing to stop the train, and are in fact detrimental. Look no further than the results last two major American elections for validation of that public opinion.
Of course, Whether "Unstoppable" is an actual true story as it claims to be, or is merely a metaphor for one, in the end all that really matters is the adrenaline rush, and "Unstoppable" delivers the goods. It's tempting to consider the actors incidental in a film like this, as their job essentially amounts to being the heroic guys trying to prove the title inaccurate, but that is refreshingly not the case. Washington's talent may seem wasted, holed up for most of the film in a moving train engine, but his presence is ultimately rewarding, even if this role offers him no real heavy lifting. For Chris Pine, this is a good and logical next career step beyond young Captain Kirk. As the token snarky young hero who climbs around on the outside of speeding trains, he does not disappoint.
"Unstoppable" may or may not be remembered for the multi-layered analysis I dabble in here, and that's okay. It does what it sets out to do - it delivers a bullet train of conventional mainstream excitement that never goes off the rails.
- Jim Tudor