Unstoppable
“No driver. No brakes. And thousands of lives directly in its path.”
Director
Tony Scott
Release
24 November 2010
Runtime
98 Minutes
Certificate
12A
Synopsis
Railroad engineer Frank Barnes begins what should be another routine day working with Will Colson, a younger conductor still finding his feet on the job. Elsewhere on the railway, a seemingly minor mistake creates a rapidly escalating emergency. A freight train begins moving without its engineer aboard. What initially appears manageable becomes considerably more dangerous when attempts to board and stop the locomotive fail. The train continues accelerating, carrying hazardous material and heading towards increasingly populated territory. Railroad operations manager Connie Hooper coordinates attempts to bring the situation under control, but each solution introduces new risks. Frank and Will are travelling on the same line. Instead of simply getting out of the runaway's path, Frank develops another plan. If they can position their locomotive behind the unmanned train, they may be able to catch it. From there, somebody still has to get aboard. With the runaway continuing towards a dangerous section of track and time disappearing, two ordinary railway workers become the final chance of preventing a catastrophe.
The Movie Trailer
Unstoppable is Tony Scott's relentless 2010 action thriller starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine as two railway workers attempting to stop a runaway freight train loaded with hazardous cargo.
Veteran engineer Frank Barnes is working alongside young conductor Will Colson when news begins spreading across the railway network about an unmanned train travelling under power.
At first, it's another problem happening somewhere else.
Then the scale of the danger becomes clear.
The train is gaining speed, attempts to stop it are failing, and its route is taking it towards heavily populated areas.
With conventional solutions disappearing, Frank and Will realise that their own locomotive may offer one final opportunity to catch the runaway.
But stopping a train travelling at full power means getting close enough to something nobody else has been able to control.
RUNAWAY
A Simple Mistake Becomes a Race Against Disaster
The terrifying thing about Unstoppable is how quickly an ordinary working day becomes an emergency.
No criminal mastermind and no elaborate conspiracy drives the runaway train.
A chain of mistakes sets a locomotive in motion without anyone able to control it.
From there, every passing minute worsens the situation.
Speed increases. Options disappear. The communities further down the railway become increasingly vulnerable.
Tony Scott builds the tension by making the threat brutally simple.
The train is moving.
And somehow, somebody has to stop it.
FRANK & WILL
Denzel Washington and Chris Pine Become an Unlikely Team
Frank Barnes and Will Colson don't begin the day as partners in any meaningful sense.
Frank is an experienced railway veteran who understands the job instinctively. Will is younger, less experienced and carrying problems from his life outside work.
Their differences create friction before the runaway train even enters their world.
Once the emergency begins, however, experience and determination matter far more than whether the two men like each other.
Frank understands what the railway can do.
Will has to trust him enough to attempt something neither man expected when their shift began.
By the time they begin chasing the runaway, they're no longer simply two employees sharing a locomotive.
They're a team.
TONY SCOTT
Unstoppable Turns a Runaway Train Into a 98-Minute Adrenaline Rush
Tony Scott takes a remarkably straightforward premise and continually finds ways to increase its intensity.
The runaway train is always moving, so the story rarely has a chance to slow down.
Every failed attempt to stop it makes the next solution more desperate. Every mile travelled brings the train closer to a place where the consequences could be catastrophic.
Yet beneath the spectacle, Unstoppable remains grounded in the people attempting to solve the problem.
Frank, Will and Connie aren't superheroes.
They're railway workers using their experience, judgement and courage to deal with a situation that has moved far beyond anything a normal shift should demand.