The Unseen Movie Review - Unstoppable

By Robert Dixter Nov 12, 2010, 13:48 GMT

Loosely inspired by real events, a young conductor jumps into a locomotive with an experienced engineer in chase of a runaway train that carries a cargo of toxic chemicals. ...more

Why do directors team up with the same actors over and over again? Because it’s too hard finding friends on Facebook? It’s like a marriage but without the sex (except for Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.) Scorsese and DiCaprio, Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe, Tony Scott and Denzel Washington. Unstoppable which opens on November 12th is the fifth film Tony has made with Denzel.

From Tony’s viewpoint it makes perfect sense, here is a great actor who always delivers the goods and can do drama, comedy or action. I think Denzel just likes Tony’s baseball hats and cigars. Or maybe it’s that Tony knows how to command and control a set and a big budget film.

Their new film seems like the perfect vehicle for both of them. Denzel plays the working man who is being forced out of a job while an unmanned train carrying combustible liquids and poisonous gas is tearing down the track. The movie sounds like the time my college roommate ate a Taco Bell burrito that had been sitting on the counter all weekend. Unstoppable gives Denzel a chance to flex the acting muscles while Tony shows off the train and the stunts.

Denzel recently played a similar role in Pelham 123, also directed by Tony Scott. He was a normal Joe who fell into being a hero. Watching movies like these you start to wonder if the situation ever presented itself to you would you respond like Denzel’s characters. The truth is that most of us would poop our pants and then go home and watch the story unfold on CNN (hopefully after having changed our soiled underpants.)

The thing that makes this partnership work so well is that no one can shoot action like Tony Scott. This is the guy who directed The Last Boy Scout and Enemy of the State. He always keeps the story moving and the action coming (except Revenge which lacked action, romance or even a reason to be made.)

It’s also the way he shoots his action. Man on Fire was a little too stylized for me, but usually he covers all bases and gives you a clear taut scene that you don’t want to see end.

The other selling point is that Scott knows how to shoot speed. If anyone was going to document an out of control train I would want Tony Scott behind the camera. He shot Top Gun and Days of Thunder. Now if I needed someone to shoot an out of control Hollywood actress I would go to Lindsay Lohan. Tony knows how to make the viewer feel like they are going over 100 miles an hour.

I’ve seen a few trailers and commercials for this film, and the ones that play up the train make this seem like the perfect popcorn movie to check out over Thanksgiving when you’ve had enough of your family. So if I don’t get out to it this weekend, I’m sure I’ll be there on Thursday November 25th, hopefully around 6pm.