I like Denzel Washington a lot, all his movies seem to be golden. Looking back on his career anyone would be hard pressed to find a movie that wasn't good or a movie that didn't make mountains of money. Training Day, American Gangster, Remember the Titans, John Q, and the list goes on and on of movies ranging from dark and mysterious to good and wholesome. His latest movie, Unstoppable is another golden one.
Denzel plays a veteran train engineer who is tasked to work with the equivalent of a rookie at the train yard. It is another routine day as they take a train, pick up its boxcars and start taking them wherever they need to be. Everything is fine except for one problem, there is a runaway train that is flying down the tracks with no driver on board and its towing a massive amount of very dangerous and hazardous chemicals. The train is going nearly 70 mph down the tracks and is about to hit a curve in the track that has a required speed of 15 mph or less. It's a race against time to stop the train before it gets to the curve and Denzel along with Chris Pine is tasked to do it.
The movie has a good story, inspired by a true story and after looking it up the movie seems to be accurate. Chris Pine is a young actor starring across from Denzel and Pine showed everyone that he has what it takes when he showed up in Star Trek as James Tiberius Kirk. He continues showing that in this movie as well. Unlike his previous roles as a handsome young noble or a star ship captain, Pine is a young man separated from his family and just trying to get his life back on track and back to normal. Denzel plays the veteran who has two grown up daughters working their way through college and he is the old man in the business being forced out as the business replaces him with younger employees, like Pine. Pine is a rookie in the business and during the beginning stages of the movie he is getting to know Denzel's character and in the later stages they start to work together well. Their partnership is not based on instant friendship, unlike other movies it is based on the necessity wanting to live.
The filmography blew me away. So many fast and crazy movies have camera angles and shots making you feel like your on a roller coaster. Not this one though, this movie has angles and shots that don't make you sick. The chase camera parts and the shots of the train moving make you feel like your following the train rather then riding on its undercarriage.
The movie does portray the inner workings of the train command center and how they deal in everyday situations as well as in crisis. The rush is on as Denzel and Pine volunteer to try and stop the runaway train after several attempts fail. It's fun to watch as Denzel takes matters into his own hands while the command center wishes him good luck and corporate yells at him to stop or risk being fired until he informs them that he had already received his 90 day notice from them that he was going to be forced to retire. All of these things combine into something great.
On the downside, the movie did have some characters that were not fleshed out enough. Some of the problems facing the characters were presented but then never addressed leaving me wondering if those problems had just vanished. One character that was shown in the beginning made rare appearances during the movie lasting no more then three minutes. It left you to wonder what exactly his job was and even at the end when you saw him for more then three minutes, you still were lost on what exactly his job was. The soundtrack was hard to hear if there was one and some parts of the movie were completely unnecessary. Pine takes around four phone calls in the beginning of the movie, only two of which contribute to the story. The others aren't even long enough to be a time extension tactic which leaves me wondering why they even bothered having them in there.
Review
Grade-Harvest It!
Highs-Great story, believable and based on a true story, can't beat that. Both actors do well and the filmography is amazing
Lows-Absent soundtrack, parts of the movie are not needed and it does demonize some people a little too much
Rating-PG 13 for sequences of action and peril and some language
Kid Friendly?I would say it is, a bit scary and I would not take your 5 year old to see it, but any cursing is almost nowhere in it and I would say ages 10 and up would be fine
Overview-Movies make be expensive to go to but this movie was worth the price.
-Rezler
