Unstoppable

Tis the season for Oscar bait, and with that comes added depth to the movies coming out this season. Unstoppable doesn't contain a single extra layer. You know exactly what you're getting. A train you can't stop dangerous chemicals on the tracks, headed towards a small blue collar town, with a train full of children coming in the opposite direction. We're one horse and a sweet mustache away from a Dudley-do-right cartoon. Cue the woman tied to the tracks.

Not that there is anything wrong with this formula. If this is what you want when you are going to the movies then director Tony Scott is going to give you exactly that. It's full of the train running through things which always impresses me as to how things still remain on tracks. Despite whistles, bells, and a track signaling the exact path of said train people still manage to leave shit in front of it. Really that is a credit to the writers of the movie, but that is the only kudos i will be handing out to the team who was able to churn out gems like "We're talking about a missile the size the Chrysler building" and then go to lunch feeling good about themselves.

This movie has almost every cliche you could think of right down to the actors playing their parts. These are just two ordinary men hopping from car to car on a runaway train trying to protect their loved ones who live in the town the train is headed towards. It features the chiseled old employee, Denzel Washington, who is being forced to retire and train the new employee, Chris Pine, who is just trying to find his calling and make amends with his astranged family. One can only hope a high pressure situation will fix all of that. Denzel Washington has worked with Tony Scott in five previous films so they clearly enjoy working with each other. And I think after Denzel wins awards for acting, like the TONY for Fences he enjoys doing mindless action flicks where he can get a nice paycheck. Meanwhile Chris Pine should be on everyones list of actors to watch before he gets even more expensive to cast.

Besides the train barreling down to kill a school of nuns, the antagonistic forces in this movie are the suits worried about minimizing their costs. Everyone plays the roles and fits into the subsets that they need to. The middle man is played by Miss Rosario Dawson who has yet to blow me away in any of her performances but she does the job and I never regret seeing any of her films.

There are a lot of laugh out loud moments in this flick whether that is intentional or not. Much of it stems from the live news coverage of the story to further convey that the movie is based on real events. All of the news outlets privy us to awful coverage and ridiculous graphics which is probably the most accurate portrayal of the story.

For all the flack I have given it, my opening statement is true. These guys give you exactly what you want. It follows a B-movie formula and will actually get your heart pounding if you let yourself become immersed in the ridiculousness of it all. B-