SYNOPSIS:
Hang
on for the ride of your life as Oscar-winner Denzel Washington
and Chris Pine (Star Trek) team up for the year's most electrifying
action-thriller. A runaway train, transporting deadly, toxic
chemicals, is barreling down on Scranton, Pennsylvania, and
only two men can stop it: a veteran engineer (Washington)
and a young conductor (Pine). Thousands of lives hang in the
balance as these ordinary heroes attempt to chase down one
million tons of hurtling steel and prevent an epic disaster.
Helmed by visionary director Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Enemy
of the State, Top Gun), this story inspired by true events
delivers excitement and suspense that are - Unstoppable!
MOVIE REVIEW:
Tony Scott has literally directed more moving vehicles than any other people in his career that spanned more than two decades. For a start, the man was responsible for a certain fighter jet drama, "Top Gun", this was followed by racer cars in "Days of Thunder". Blew up a ship in "Déjà vu" and conquered the New York subway in "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3". So what’s left on his list? Apparently, a runaway cargo freight train in "Unstoppable".
In this Mark Bomback’s (Die Hard 4) scribed action thriller, Scott’s frequent collaborator, Denzel Washington and Chris Pine plays Frank and Will respectively. Frank is a veteran engineer while Will is the rookie conductor, both men playing unwilling heroes to stop a toxic loaded runaway train from crashing into the city.
This might sounds like a no-brainer and simplistic actioner and to be fair it is but Scott effectively crafted a nail-biting experience for the audience, never letting anyone (including the cast, mind you) stop for a breather throughout the 98 minutes duration.
Everyone knows Denzel Washington is a superb actor and well, Chris Pine of course is in huge demand these days after his Star Trek stint. As far as it goes, "Unstoppable" is not the material to talk about acting anyway. Both I suppose both men knew the limits of the script and their bantering about their characters inbetween scenes serve nothing more than filler. Frank has two lovely daughters working in Hooters and Will’s wife and young son has a restraining order against him. Okay that’s all we need to know.
The main protagonist here is the runaway angry beast aka the freight train. Employing some really cool old-school filmmaking techniques and hair-raising stunts which George Lucas should seriously consider, Scott derails, collide and explode anything that comes in the way instead of relying on CG effects. The onslaught of continuous visceral thrills is amazingly solid and it’s also a fortunate choice that Scott decides to leave out his trademark annoying editing style this time round after the disastrous "Domino".
To those who are looking for more human casting choices, there is Rosario Dawson as a no-nonsense rail manager and Kevin Dunn (Witwicky’s dad from Transformers) as a ruthless corporate boss. Yet again, I must emphasized no one can eclipsed the appearance of the speeding locomotive.
Sometimes, everyone needs a good escapist action thriller and "Unstoppable" fits the bill perfectly. This is the 21st century answer to the iconic 1994 "Speed". Remember to empty your bladder before you pop the disc in.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
Scott definitely knows how to execute a good old action thriller and here, the man shares his vision and filmmaking anecdotes in Audio Commentary with Tony Scott. Definitely worth a listen for movie fans even though some of the material are covered in subsequent discussions and featurettes.
The Fastest Track: Unleashing Unstoppable is a 29 minutes long making-of feature which covers everything from story research, location scouting, stuntwork, aerial cinematography to cast and crew interviews.
Derailed: Anatomy of a Scene shows how Scott and his production team derailed a train in this 10 minutes feature. Cool.
Hanging Off the Train: Stunt Work is a behind-the-scene feature that showcases the amazing stuntwork performed by the stunt people, Denzel Washington and Chris Pine.
On the Rails with the Director and Cast –A discussion session with Tony Scott, Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, and Rosario Dawson. Interestingly, it’s Scott who offers the best snippets on making the movie.
The DVD extra features end with a
Theatrical Trailer
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The visual quality is stylized with saturated and grainy images that are done on purpose. What’s more impressive is the audio with all the massive chugging and looming sounds of the locomotives across the room. Definitely a winner in the sound department.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Linus Tee
Posted
on 20 March 2011
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