Unstoppable Review

• 22nd Nov 2010

Let’s count: Crimson Tide, Man On Fire, Déjà Vu, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and now Unstoppable; that’s the fifth collaboration between director Tony Scott and actor Denzel Washington. Looking at that list it seems like almost a case of diminishing returns. The first two are hard hitters and the skills of both artists are within their peak output. The latter half seems to have tailed off somewhat – mainly because the scripts just were not all that riveting. That and Scott’s style of editing his films has just become a bit of a mess lately.

Unstoppable is a slight step up but is still very much a Tony Scott film. Washington along with fellow lead Chris Pine both do good work (yet it is Pine who probably has slightly more meat to chew than Washington) and yet it is all ultimately let down by the fact that this story just isn’t that riveting again.

The premise and the play-out of it are much more suited to the TV movie formula. Yes there are a few smashes and the odd explosion, but nothing that justifies an out of control budget! It may be a while since we have had an out of control train story but they were all done better before. Here, a lot of time is wasted on suits in offices chattering and media updates, both of which do not make it any more exciting. The suits making all the bad decisions are merely there to make out leads look more heroic in their decisions. Cliché!

The media coverage is also a bit of a cliché. The way this all turns out, you start to wonder why they didn’t just try to drop someone via helicopter onto the front of the train who could then hit the brake? Yes, they do try it and it goes wrong but there is no evidence to suggest that they couldn’t have tried it again under different circumstances.

It is perhaps noble that such a down to earth problem is being tackled in the Hollywood canon. It is a breath of fresh air from CGI robots beating the hell out of each other, but it just doesn’t work as the tense pot boiler it is trying to be. It is all fairly average and neither Washington nor Pine can haul it to anything else. Plus, if the budget is to be believed we really are starting to worry what the money is being spent on, or just how fast film production is escalating in terms of price. We suspect that given to a new indie director they could have pulled it off at a third of the price.

Steven Hurst