Unstoppable (2010)

We knew what it was about and what was going to happen, but still enjoyed the whole thrilling tale of a runaway train pulling toxic chemicals speeding toward a populated city. Directed by Ridley's brother Tony Scott and edited tightly down to the bare essentials, it kept hearts pounding with each new danger as it was presented. I really did appreciate the editing, and not just because I was acquainted with prolific co-editor Chris Lebenzon in my early years in Los Angeles.

Scott (Top Gun (1986), True Romance (1993), Enemy of the State (1998), and others not seen by me) works with a script by Mark Bomback, who adapted it from a real incident that actually happened in northern Ohio (here's the true story). In the movie it all takes place in Pennsylvania, though there are goofs in terminology (the imdb list has spoilers), for example, the newspeople refer to Northern or Southern Pennsylvania, when locals would say Southeastern, Northwestern, etc. The "target" is the fictional town of Stanton, and the exterior shooting locations were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, upstate New York, and West Virginia.

Denzel Washington (Oscars for Glory (1989) and Training Day (2001), nominations for Cry Freedom (1987), Malcolm X (1992), and The Hurricane (1999), I also liked him in St. Elsewhere, Mo' Better Blues (1990), He Got Game (1998), and Inside Man (2006), the latter three directed by Spike Lee, American Gangster (2007) by Ridley Scott, and the two he directed himself: Antwone Fisher (2002) and The Great Debaters (2007)) plays Everyman with a big heart and big other parts (i.e. courage). You may like this long clip from his recent appearance on David Letterman (Jack and I did--he talks about some of the stunts, among many things, starting at about 10 minutes--you might want to wait til you've seen the movie to watch the end of the clip). His wingman in this movie is Chris Pine (Bottle Shock, Star Trek), who also is more than just a pretty face. The pretty face here is the hard-working Rosario Dawson (co-starred with Denzel in He Got Game, plus good performances in, among others, Ed Burns' Sidewalks of New York (2001), Men in Black II (2002), 25th Hour (2002), Shattered Glass (2003), and, of course, Rent (2005)) who plays the hard-working yardmaster Connie.

One of the so-called goofs is Connie's scrunchy moving from wrist to wrist, but she put that thing in her hair and took it out every couple of minutes under stress, so who could keep track? The ever-amusing Ethan Supplee (My Name is Earl's dumb brother Randy) plays the doofus who lets the train go in the first place, and Kevin Corrigan (after I wrote about him in Big Fan, he was in Please Give) finally gets some respect, after playing lots of losers, as an intellectual safety inspector with lots of facts stored in his curly-topped head.

We also enjoyed the action-packed music by Harry Gregson-Williams (The Town), who has earned one of this movie's Satellite Award nominations (along with editors Lebenzon and Robert Duffy, cinematographer Ben Seresin, and the sound and visual effects teams) given by the International Press Academy. Here is my running list of nominations sorted by movie.

This is a popcorn movie through and through, so don't expect great art. That said, it's loads of fun, fourth at the box office now, with an 86% rating by critics and 79% by audiences on rottentomatoes. And anyone who loves trains and wishes to have more passenger rail opportunities will love it.