Unstoppable (2010)
Directed by Tony Scott
When a massive, unmanned locomotive roars out of control, the threat is more ominous than just a derailment. The train is laden with toxic chemicals, and an accident would decimate human life and cause an environmental disaster. The only hope of bringing the train to a safe stop is in the hands of veteran engineer Frank Barnes, and young conductor Will Colson, who must risk their lives to save those in the runaway's path. Inspired by true events.
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22 films that influenced Unstoppable
What critics say influenced Unstoppable
“Unstoppable” is, of course, reminiscent of the 1994 smash, “Speed.”
Contrast “Unstoppable” to “Speed”, where Jan de Bont shows Keanu’s bus zipping by other cars and buildings to show us just how fast this crazy thing is going.
Likely to replace "Runaway Train" (the 1985 thriller about escaped convicts onboard an unmanned and brake-less train) in the minds of most viewers in terms of this sub-genre of the action field, but not quite as fun, exciting or entertaining as that other transportation thriller, "Speed," this one delivers as needed.
But since Washington is Washington and Scott is Scott and Hollywood is Hollywood, Unstoppable feels strictly old hat: Speed with a train, located in Scott's tiresomely hyperactive, tirelessly dumb oeuvre of high-tech "man caves" and pointless snap zooms.
Unstoppable is like Speed for a new generation and it makes for some of the most thrilling 100 minutes you’ll experience in 2011, I’m sure of it.
The best one was probably “Runaway Train,” starring Jon Voight and Eric Roberts .
They always have worked well together, and this film, not to be confused with the 1985 movie "Runaway Train" about two escaped convicts aboard such a vehicle, is no exception.
Two other films that come to mind are Buster Keaton's "The General" (1926) and Andrei Konchalovsky's " Runaway Train " (1985), which won Oscar nominations for the two men in its locomotive, Jon Voight and Eric Roberts .
It's almost impossible to write about a runaway train movie without mentioning Andrei Konchalovsky's 1985 thriller, Runaway Train .
The actors get a lot more to do in the admittedly brisk second half of Unstoppable, but the filmmakers come up with a surprisingly small number of cliffhanger scenarios involving the speeding locomotive: 1985’s Runaway Train, although a dramatically different picture, did infinitely more exciting things with its premise.
That was the year Eric Roberts and Jon Voight starred in Runaway Train, capping off a couple decades worth of movies and made for TV endeavors in which the railroads lose control of a locomotive, sending it willy nilly down the tracks towards a heavily populated area with no way to stop it.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant to the Film: One blackface Gene Wilder from Silver Streak out of five.
This is why there are so many trains in movies, from 1903’s “The Great Train Robbery’’ on, and this is why “Unstoppable,’’ whose sole premise is right there in the title, works like a well-oiled charm.
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Last year, he remade that classic 1974 heist flick, “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” to mixed results.
Taking a page from Steven Spielberg’s “Duel,’’ “Unstoppable’’ anthropomorphizes the runaway train where it can, using camera angles and the sound mix to create the “character’’ of an arrogant fume-belching behemoth that bisects all the human busy-ness — news copters and cop cars and our heroes driving backward as fast as they can — in a clean and vicious line.
Two other films that come to mind are Buster Keaton's "The General" (1926) and Andrei Konchalovsky's " Runaway Train " (1985), which won Oscar nominations for the two men in its locomotive, Jon Voight and Eric Roberts .
Even in a movie like “Twister”, there’s stupid Cary Elwes in his black van and his polo for Bill Paxton to worry about (I’ve tried to think of non-Jan de Bont films, but movies based on “things” seems to be his thing).
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Opening with scenes that set up the unstoppable locomotive as an almost evil entity – so much so that Scott and cinematographer Ben Seresin appear to be remaking Terror Train – but before long the film is kicked into overdrive and, if you’re willing to go along for the ride, you’ll quickly forget all the silly clichés that are shoved into every scene.
At first, it's up to Rosario Dawson to make some calls and bring in Lew Temple, a character actor you might remember from Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects.
A surprising standout is Lew Temple ("The Devil's Rejects") as Ned, an employee Connie thinks of as a shirker who comes through when the chips are down.