In 2010, Denzel Washington and Tony Scott teamed up for a fifth film – this time for a story “inspired by true events.”They actually meant “historical” or “actual” rather than true, but let’s move on.
This thriller about a runaway train loaded with hazardous chemicals is 86% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, where 72% of the audience report liking it.
Synopsis
AWVR 777 is “a missile the size of the Chrysler Building.” Several of its cars contain molten phenol. Phenol, a chemical used in a wide variety of industrial processes, can cause skin, eye, or internal organ damage if touched or ingested, and is a toxic inhalation hazard if involved in a fire. While it does not readily ignite on its own, molten phenol easily ignites combustible materials, and burning phenol vapors may form explosive mixtures with air.
On another freight train, a conductor and an engineer, played by Chris Pine and Denzel Washington, realize they are the last chance to stop 777 before it reaches an elevated turn in a populated area.
Verdict
A shamelessly manipulative thrill-a-minute ride that will get your heart racing, but that lacks a heart of its own.
It’s no surprise that Unstoppable works.
Tony Scott has been making action movies since Top Gun in 1986. With over twenty-five years of experience under his belt, we’d be surprised if he didn’t know how to thrill us. We just need to look at why and how.
Unstoppable is not perfect.
Tony Scott’s style, while understated in this film, is on full display. Mr. Scott likes to get his camera to imitate the human eye. He uses unsteady, hand-held, cameras that change focus between foreground and background, and that don’t frame the shot perfectly. Those things do happen here, but not as much as in, say, Man on Fire, Domino, and Déjà Vu.
Mr. Scott also likes to use lots and lots of jump cuts. Those are on display here, and at times are very annoying. The insertion of news media coverage of the events is distracting, and pulls the viewer out of the action.
In the plus column, he does stray from his typical movie ending.
Lessons
Unstoppable takes liberties with real events, and that’s okay. The film doesn’t claim to be a historical recreation of real events. It’s just inspired by them.
In real life, a 47-car CSX Transportation freight train, number 8888, got loose from Stanley Yard in Lake Township, Pennsylvania on May 15, 2001. CSX tried to derail the train first, and when that failed, they instructed the crew of another train to pursue the runaway, hook up to it, and slow it down. When that succeeded, another man ran alongside the slower train, jumped in, and took control.
No attempt was made to send another engine out front. No one tried to lower himself from a helicopter to the runaway engine car. There were only two cars of phenol. There were sharply curved tracks near Kenton, PA, but they weren’t elevated above a tank farm.
Adding elements and compressing timelines, or moving events around on the timeline, is how filmmakers turn historical events into compelling fiction.
Take particular note of how Mr. Scott and writer Mark Bomback use three-act story structure.
Act One establishes our characters and story. In Act Two, two attempts to stop the runaway fail, and each time the train moves closer to populated areas, reducing the methods available to stop it. In Act Three, Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) and Will Colson (Chris Pine) make two attempts to stop the train (braking with their locomotive, and manually braking the freight cars) before a third attempt succeeds. This is classic, formal, story structure and it works.
Stopping AWVR 777 is obviously the right thing to do, but another place that Unstoppable fails is establishing character motivations. In the film, management threatens to fire Frank and Will if they risk their locomotive, and lives, to stop 777. It’s completely unclear why they defy corporate and risk their lives. Again, it was the right thing to do, and we can speculate why they felt like they had to do it, but the movie doesn’t bother to tell us – and that robs Unstoppable of a heart. We, as the audience, deserve to know why characters do what they do.
There’s lots of character background about Frank’s and Will’s families. There are attempts to make issues out of nepotism, experience versus book learning, and corporate versus workers. None of those really come to fruition. They serve as filler, empty noise that makes you think the story is deeper than it is.
In fact, I didn’t know the main characters’ names until the last third of the movie. I knew Connie (Rosario Dawson), Bunny (Kevin Chapman), Dewey (Ethan Suplee), Ned (Lew Temple), and Galvin (Kevin Dunn). I even knew Darcy Colson (Jessy Schram) before I knew Frank and Will, but I think you can see why:
There’s clearly an anti-corporate axe to grind in the movie. The juxtaposition of boardrooms and golf courses with cramped, interiors full of dedicated workers clearly illustrates the bias. Nothing comes of it, but it’s thrown in to make us sympathize with the railroad workers.
The music is ham-handed at best, although there is one very good use of silence in the final sequences.
Reaction shots of family and co-workers are heavy-handed manipulations, but they do shine a light on an important lesson: Good character actors are critical to the success of your movie. The other people in the scene besides the stars sell the reality of the moment, and bring home the emotional message.
I’m not disparaging Chris Pine or Denzel Washington. They keep us interested throughout the movie. They do fine work. They could do better with a better script, but they do the best they can with what they have.
Ultimately
Tony Scott knows how to make an action movie, and Unstoppable shows that off. Just don’t expect a deep, character-driven, film.
