Unstoppable (2010)
With an unmanned, half-mile-long freight train barreling toward a city, a veteran engineer and a young conductor race against the clock to prevent a catastrophe.
With this weeks Top Ten Tuesdays list being the Scott brothers i thought i'd give the late Tony's last film a rewatch.
It's an absolute buttock clenching gripper of a movie. A disaster movie as it might happen in real life and pretty much akin to the kind of film favoured by Peter Berg in recent years (Patriot's Day and Deepwater Horizon). Scott thrusts us head first into a new day at a Pennsylvania rail yard and straight into character's lives as we meet up with Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson et-al. The script isn't candy coated to feel the viewer into the film, we pretty much have to pick up the lingo as it goes along. Admittedly it doesn't have the dense terminology of say Deepwater Horizon but it's a similar scenario.
The action when it kicks in is a delight, it's not superhero style action, we don't have Spiderman bringing the train to a halt with a single web, it's more realistic and grounded in reality and equally more edge of the seat, helped no end by the everyman roles of Washington and Pine at the heart of the attempts to stop the train.
A third time viewing and yet again i really enjoyed it. Looking back it should really have made my top 10 as it's a more streamlined and focused film than Kingdom of Heaven which i gave tenth place to.
Highly recommended.
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