Back in 1994, there was an action movie about a bus held hostage and unable to stop without exploding. The movie I’m talking about is Speed, I have yet to repeat the twin feelings of being on the edge of my seat and being so exhausted after a movie-going experience. Unstoppable reminded me a lot of Speed, and not just because the movie grabs you from the start and won’t let go.
Based on real-life events, Unstoppable stars Denzel Washington (Training Day) and Chris Pine (Star Trek) as two train workers who, along with train boss Rosario Dawson, must stop an unmanned runaway train headed straight for a residential neighborhood before it overturns and kills hundreds of innocent people.
Unstoppable is an excellent action movie because it increases the tension at a steady rate throughout, building on the basic premise of a runaway train until the stakes are incredibly high and the characters are at their peak, working to stop a train before it’s too late. By the time you get to the ending, the tension will have you crushing your seat (or your girlfriend) in a tense vice grip. Some of the events presented here seem over the top (not that they jumped a bus over a freeway or anything), but this story actually happened (reportedly), and by the end the film you will be convinced that this peril could visit anyone.
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2010.