Unstoppable

Insipired by true events, namely a 2001 incident during which an unmanned CSX freight train carrying hazardous material sped off on a 66-mile joyride through Ohio, Unstoppable is director Tony Scott's second action film involving a train in less than two years (The Taking of Pelham 123 being the first).  And it's a pretty solidly entertaining action film.  It's a bit like Speed on a train.

The story basically follows the incident that inspired it, only with a lot more danger involved.  A freight train gets away from a careless engineer (we don't need no stinkin' airbrakes!) who hops out of the cab to flip a switch and promptly takes off at speeds of 75mph through the rural Pennsylvania countryside.  Along the way, there's a train filled with schoolkids on field trip, hairpin turns through populated towns conveniently located near giant fuel tanks, the jackass who thinks railroad crossings don't apply to him, and the usual corporate d-bags who chime in from the golf course to veto all sensible ways of stopping the thing because it causes some real damage.

Luckily we have Denzel Washington and Chris Pine around to save the day.  They play engingeers batting a not-particularly-interesting old guy/young guy argument around while driving their own train (the drama with Pine's character seemed more implausible than some of the half-assed attempts made to stop the train), but luckily that takes a backseat once they go after the runaway train.  The two of them work well together, and even though their characters are somewhat flat.  Rosario Dawson was also fun to watch as the no-nonsense dispatcher who seems to be the only one who can comprehend what's going on.

I know nothing about trains, but my dad, who's a train maniac, had a lot of fun after the movie pointing out all of the technical inaccuracies, so don't go looking for any of that.  But as an action movie, it's a lot of fun (my dad loved it anyway), especially the last half-hour or so, which is basically a big train chase with people leaping between two different locomotives at breakneck speed.  That was pretty cool. 

If you're looking for an intense character-driven story, this probably isn't it (although the performances were certainly good enough).  But if you're looking for a decent action movie, this is definitely worth checking out.