UNSTOPPABLE!

A colleague gave me two movie passes last week,  so I asked a female friend to accompany me to the cinema last November 29, Monday to relax.

We agreed to watch “Harry Potter” because my friend is a wizard fan. Unfortunately, the passes were valid only in a movie called “UNSTOPPABLE”, I frowned since I never heard such movie, but when I read the name of Denzel Washington on the poster, I know it is a great film.

And it was…

Unstoppable is one of the best rescue-themed movies I'd seen in recent years. The film made me curled my feet while watching the chasing scenes of the runaway train. Though it was not the most amazing action films Hollywood offered this year, it was far from boring.

The story picks on Frank Barnes (Washington) and Will Colson (Chris Pine), who played a railroad engineer and a conductor trainee respectively. They both had issues of misunderstanding with their respective families: Frank (maybe because of lack of time) with his two daughters while Will with his wife. Together they made a promise to mend it up when they return home, but one event would forever change the course of their fate.

The film opens with several trains panning on the railroad, in a distant yard, Dewey, a railroad engineer, maneuvered a locomotive cab connecting several cars loaded with toxic materials, to clear the area for the excursion train, carrying school children, to pass. He noticed a switch on his way not properly set, so he stoop down pushing the dynamic brakes in its lock. But after he inspected the switch, the brakes released, picking its speed, Dewey tried desperately to re-board but was unsuccessful until the train left the main line and roared away.

This unmanned cargo train runs at its high speed sending panic to railroad executives, police authorities and residents. The incident attracted media attention so it became a national news sensation. If the circumstances will run out of luck, the cargo train will derail into an elevated curve and will smash into the thickly populated area of Stanton, Pennsylvania colliding with several tank fuels below triggering a deadly combination of human destruction and environmental disaster.

There’s no way to stop this train from arriving to its final doom, than controlling the brakes on the locomotive cab, how their men could jump aboard on the runaway train leaves an agonizing question to the minds of the railroad executives.

The scene was intensely followed with a thrilling chase of rescue operations and the site of the approaching “killer” train to Stanton. Authorities tried desperately to use all resources: cars, airplanes, experts and intense monitoring both from the authorities and the police forces but everything went into vain until Frank offered for help.

Frank Barnes and Will Colston were on the opposite road boarding their locomotive cab, doing their usual assignment: picking cars and traveling it to the destined area. But while sharing their personal troubles on board, they were alerted by a railroad yardmaster to shift into a different railway to avoid collision with the unmanned train running wildly. Frank’s locomotive narrowly escape, when he realized the massive destruction the cargo train would implicate, he offered help. Will Colston, at first, was reluctant, but later on agreed. They were rejected by authorities, unsure with the outcome, but Frank was determined.

Will Colston (Chris Pine) in his attempt to connect the unmanned train to a locomotive cab he boarded with Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington)

The next one-hour-and-a-half is packed with daring rescue drama scenes, showing the chasing sequences in an exciting adventure of suspense and action. The fast-paced story and terrific cinematography add an electrifying tension that connects viewers to the adventure unfolded on the big screen.

The authorities helplessly watched the train passed through many curve lines, creating more damages on properties, they started evacuating the residents of the area of Stanton where the train is calculated to explode. Frank and Will threw effort to attach the unmanned train to their locomotive. As they took the brakes under control, the spectators, authorities and colleagues breathlessly watched the two trains approaching the dangerous curve railway of Stanton with tank of fuels underneath, when it finally halted to the ground, everybody breathed a sigh of relief!

Well, Unstoppable is not a boring film, though I cannot say it is brilliantly made as there are lots of loopholes (some important elements presented in the opening scene were missing), but this is one sort of a film I would love to watch all over again. The movie runs one hour and forty minutes, very entertaining that I temporarily forgot I still have many assignments to do, lol!

So when I got back home, I immediately worked on my papers (two cases from Management Accounting, one journal critique from Marketing Management and one VMG task from Ignatian for Managers then lots of chapter reading from these subjects..waaah!) and pondered hard on my fate again.