Unstoppable (2010 film)

Unstoppable
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tony Scott
Written by	Mark Bomback
Produced by	Tony Scott Julie Yorn Mimi Rogers Eric McLeod Alex Young
Starring	Denzel Washington Chris Pine Rosario Dawson Ethan Suplee Jessy Schram
Cinematography	Ben Seresin
Edited by	Chris Lebenzon Robert Duffy
Music by	Harry Gregson-Williams
Production companies	Scott Free Productions Prospect Park Millbrook Farm Productions
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	November 12, 2010 (2010-11-12)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$100 million
Box office	$120,467,504

Unstoppable is a 2010 American action thriller film directed by Tony Scott, written by Mark Bomback and starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. The film tells the story of a runaway freight train, and the two men (Washington and Pine) who attempt to stop it. The film was released in the United States and Canada on November 12, 2010, and in the United Kingdom on November 24, 2010.

Plot

After panning across some idling diesel locomotives under the opening credits, the film begins with scenes at two rail yards in different regions of Pennsylvania run by the fictional Allegheny and West Virginia Railroad (AWVR). In the fictional Fuller yard in northern Pennsylvania, children arrive for a school field trip on rail safety. Meanwhile, in the fictional southern Pennsylvania town of Stanton, Will Colson (Chris Pine) gets up for work, stopping to surreptitiously watch his wife put their son on the school bus. He calls her but she refuses to even answer.

Arriving at work, Colson, a conductor, gets his orders for the day and learns that he will be working with engineer Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington), with whom he has never worked before. He goes to a group of older workers, with whom he has some barbed words over their age differences, and finds Barnes among them. While he goes to punch in, the other older workers complain about being displaced by Colson, who they say got his job through family connections in the union.

Meanwhile, in Fuller, the yardmaster yells at a pair of hostlers who have been standing idle near a freight train led by locomotive #777 (nicknamed "Triple Seven") to get it moved off its current track so that the schoolchildren's excursion train can use the track to get out of the yard. In a hurry, one of them, Dewey (Ethan Suplee), decides against connecting the air hose between the lead locomotive and the rest of the half-mile–long (approx. 800m) train to save time. This, the other hostler reminds him, means that the train's air brakes will only apply on the lead locomotive, but Dewey says they will connect the hoses after parking the train on another track.

Barnes and Colson meet by their locomotive for the day, where Barnes, a 28-year employee, finds out that Colson, who will be in charge of the train, is only four months out of training. He reminds Colson that if there's anything he doesn't know, he should just ask. They take the locomotive out to where they will attach their train for the day. Colson learns that a court hearing that morning ended with the extension of a restraining order preventing him from seeing his wife and son rather than a lifting, as he had hoped.

In the locomotive cab at the Fuller yard, Dewey sets the locomotive's throttle at 100% in order to enable the train's dynamic brakes. As it approaches a switch, Dewey sees that it is not set to the right track. Against the advice of the other hostler, he jumps down from the slow-moving train to line the switch properly. While he does, the levers fall in the cab of their own accord. As the train has since picked up speed, Dewey is unsuccessful in his attempts to reboard. It leaves the yard and enters the main line unmanned.

Colson makes the mistake of picking up 5 more cars than the 20 he was ordered to. The two leave Stanton for a zinc plant. In Fuller, the hostlers let yardmaster Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson) know that that they have a runaway train headed into opposing traffic on the main line. Assuming the dead man's switch will trigger the brakes and turn the train into a "coaster" that stops a few miles from the yard, she tells them to catch up with a speeder and stop it. She also calls Ned, a welder for the railroad, and tells him to set a switch. However, when he arrives at the switch, after waiting some minutes the two in the speeder arrive, and it becomes clear that the train has passed already, moving faster than expected due to being under power. The two in the speeder proceed and catch up with the train, but do not succeed in boarding it.

Connie and the dispatchers work to get every train on the main line onto sidings. The train carrying the schoolchildren narrowly avoids a head-on collision. Oscar Galvin (Kevin Dunn), Connie's superior, calls her and asks her what's happening and what she's doing about it. She hasn't yet figured out how to stop the train and begins calling the state police to make sure that each of the grade crossings along the line are secured, since some of the tank cars on the runaway train contain molten phenol, a hazardous material.

On their train, Barnes and Colson hear the dispatcher's order to pull into a siding. Barnes says they can't use the siding initially assigned since the train is too long to fit in it. He asks instead if an RIP track further down the line is clear and gets permission to continue along the main line to it.

Galvin overrules Connie's suggestion to derail the train in an area of lightly populated farmland, since it would be too costly and it is still possible to stop the train. An emergency meeting of railroad executives approves another plan, but Galvin refuses to tell Connie what it is. The train's odyssey becomes a media event, followed by helicopters with continuous coverage on television and reporters at crossings in small towns. The train, picking up speed, smashes through a horse trailer caught on the tracks at one crossing.

The company's plan, to have a lashup of two locomotives enter the main line ahead of the runaway and slow it down while another employee attempts to board the lead locomotive from a helicopter, fails catastrophically, leading to the destruction of the lashup locomotives and the death of the veteran engineer operating them. The police abort another plan, to trigger the safety switch on the locomotive's side with close-range shotgun blasts at a grade crossing, when they realize the switch's proximity to the fuel tank. A state trooper's radar gun shows the train's speed to be 71 miles per hour (114 km/h) as it passes. Barnes and Colson make it into the RIP track in the nick of time, as the runaway smashes through the rearmost car of their consist.

As the train passes, Barnes sees that the coupling on the last car of the runaway is open. He decides to put his locomotive in reverse and catch the runaway by coupling onto the back of it. Colson, at first reluctant, joins him. Galvin insists that Barnes, Colson, and Connie abandon the plan, but they refuse even after Galvin threatens to fire them. Barnes then reveals that he has already been fired by Galvin, being 72 days into his 90 day notice period.

Another attempt to stop the train with derailers in a small town fails because the train is too heavy and going too fast. Evacuations begin as the train approaches Stanton, where the line crosses the town on a sharp elevated curve. Taking the curve at the runaway's current speed would result in it derailing and falling into a fuel oil tank farm, causing a major environmental disaster.

Barnes and Colson catch up with the runaway. After Colson manually couples their locomotive to the train, severely injuring his foot in the process, they begin slowing it down with their own brakes, but are unable to slow the runaway down enough to safely navigate the curve. Barnes goes out onto the train and begins setting each car's brakes manually, but is stopped at a gap between two cars which he cannot bridge. Colson then applies an independent brake from the chase locomotive. These two factors slow the train down just enough to get it through the curve with precarious tilting, rather than a derailment. After coming out of the curve, however, the chase locomotive's brakes blow out and the train begins to pick up speed again.

Ned the welder catches up to the train, and Colson jumps into the back of his truck. Driving at high speed they make it to the lead locomotive, where Colson is finally able to get into the cab and stops the train. Colson and Barnes are declared heroes, and Colson reunites with his wife and son.

In a short epilogue, it is revealed that Barnes was promoted and retired with full benefits, that Colson got back together with his wife who is now pregnant with their second child, Connie was promoted to Galvin's job, and that Dewey is now working "in the fast-food industry".

Cast

• Denzel Washington as Frank Barnes, a veteran railroad engineer and the main protagonist.
• Chris Pine as Will Colson, a young train conductor.
• Rosario Dawson as Connie Hooper, a train yardmaster.
• Kevin Dunn as Oscar Galvin, Hooper's boss and the main antagonist.
• Ethan Suplee as Dewey, an engineer who accidentally instigates the disaster.
• Jessy Schram as Darcy Colson, Will's wife.
• Jeff Wincott as Jesse Gordon
• Michael Shatzer as Tony, one of the railroad workers.
• Elizabeth Mathis as Nicole, one of Frank's daughters who works as a waitress at Hooters.
• Meagan Tandy as Maya, one of Frank's daughters who works as a waitress at Hooters.
• Lew Temple as Ned Oldham, a railroad welder.
• T.J. Miller as Gilleece

Production

Unstoppable suffered various production challenges before filming could commence, including casting, schedule, location and budgetary concerns.

In June 2007, 20th Century Fox was in negotiations with Martin Campbell to direct the film, and he was attached as director, until March 2009 when Tony Scott came onboard as director. In April, both Denzel Washington and Chris Pine were attached to the project.

The original budget had been trimmed from $107 million down to $100 million, but Fox wanted to further reduce it to the low $90 million range, asking director Scott to cut his salary from $9 million to $6 million and wanting Washington to shave $4 million off his $20 million fee. Washington declined, and citing lost patience with the film's lack of a start date, and although attached since April, he formally withdrew from the project in July. Fox made a modified offer as enticement, and he returned to the project two weeks later.

Production was headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the fictional railroad depicted in the movie, the "Allegheny and West Virginia Railroad," is headquartered. Filming took place in a broad area around there including the Ohio cities of Martins Ferry, Bellaire, Mingo Junction, Steubenville and Brewster, and in the Pennsylvania cities of Pittsburgh, Emporium, Milesburg, Tyrone, Julian, Unionville, Port Matilda, Bradford, Monaca, Eldred, Turtlepoint, Port Allegany and Carnegie, and also in Portville and Olean, New York. The real-life bridge and elevated curve in a climactic scene are located in Bellaire, Ohio. A two-day filming session took place at the Hooters restaurant in Monroeville, Pennsylvania (a Pittsburgh suburb), featuring 10 Hooters Girls from across the United States. Some interior scenes were shot at Mogul Media Studios on 31st street in Pittsburgh. Filming began on August 31, 2009 for a release on November 12, 2010.

Filming was delayed one day when part of the train accidentally derailed on November 21, 2009.

The locomotives used on the runaway train (#777 and helper locomotive #767) were GE AC4400CWs leased from the Canadian Pacific Railway; the other locomotives seen in the film, including the chase locomotive (#1206), were EMD SD40-2s leased from the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway. #777, #767, and #1206 each had back-up locomotives that were mainly used for cab shots as well as replacements in case one was damaged too badly. The passenger coaches used in the film that were carrying the school children were provided by the Orrville Railroad Heritage Society.

Inspiration

Main article: CSX 8888 incident

Unstoppable is inspired by the CSX 8888 incident (also called the "Crazy Eights" unmanned train incident) in 2001. The train, led by CSX Transportation SD40-2 #8888, left its Walbridge, Ohio, rail yard and began a 66-mile (106 km) journey through northwest Ohio with no one at the controls, after the engineer got out of the originally slow-moving train to correctly line a switch, mistakenly believing he had properly set the train's dynamic braking system, just as his counterpart in the movie did.

Two of the train's tank cars also contained thousands of gallons of molten phenol, a toxic ingredient of paints and dyes harmful when it is inhaled, ingested, or comes into contact with the skin. Attempts to derail it using a portable derailer failed, and police were unable to shoot out the fuel release valve, instead hitting the fuel cap. For two hours, the train traveled along at speeds up to 47 miles per hour (76 km/h) until the crew of a second train coupled onto the runaway and slowly applied its brakes. Once the runaway was slowed down to a speed of 11 miles per hour, a CSX employee, trainmaster Jon Hosfeld, ran alongside the train and climbed aboard, shutting down the locomotive. The train was stopped just southeast of Kenton, Ohio.

When the film was released, the Toledo Blade compared the events of the film to the real-life incident. "It's predictably exaggerated and dramatized to make it more entertaining," wrote David Patch, "but close enough to the real thing to support the 'Inspired by True Events' announcement that flashes across the screen at its start." He notes that the dead man switch would probably have worked in real life despite the unconnected brake hoses, unless the locomotive brakes were already applied. The film exaggerates the possible damage the phenol could have caused in a fire, and he found it incredible that the fictional AWVR freely disseminated information such as employees' names and images and the cause of the runaway to the media. In the real instance, he writes, the cause of the runaway was not disclosed until months later when the National Transportation Safety Board released its report, and CSX never made public the name of the engineer whose error let the train slip, nor what disciplinary action it took.

Release

A trailer was released on the internet on August 10, 2010. The trailer was then attached with The Expendables, The Last Exorcism, Machete, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Devil, The Town, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Red, Paranormal Activity 2, and Saw 3D.

Reception

Critical response

Unstoppable has received mostly favorable reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 85% based on 122 reviews, with an average score of 6.9/10. The film is "Certified Fresh", and the critical consensus is: "As fast, loud, and relentless as the train at the center of the story, Unstoppable is perfect popcorn entertainment—and director Tony Scott's best movie in years."

Metacritic gives the film a score of 69% based on reviews from 32 critics indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Film critic Roger Ebert rated the film three and a half stars out of four, remarking in his review, "In terms of sheer craftsmanship, this is a superb film." In The New York Times, Manohla Dargis praised the film's visual style, saying that Scott "creates an unexpectedly rich world of chugging, rushing trains slicing across equally beautiful industrial and natural landscapes."

The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, was more measured. While the movie's action scenes "ha[ve] the greasy punch of a three-minute heavy-metal guitar solo", its critic felt the characters were weak. Ultimately, its review called the film "an opportunistic political allegory about an economy that's out of control and industries that are weakened by layoffs, under-staffing and corporate callousness."

Box office

Unstoppable was expected to take in about the same amount of money at the box office as The Taking of Pelham 123, another Tony Scott film about an out-of-control train starring Denzel Washington. Pelham took in $23.4 million during its opening weekend in the United States and Canada. Unstoppable had a strong opening night on Friday November 12, 2010, coming in ahead of Megamind with a gross of $8.1 million. However Megamind won the weekend earning earning $30 million to Unstoppable 's $23.9 million. With these results, Unstoppable performed slightly better than The Taking of Pelham 123 did in its opening weekend.

External links

• Official website
• Unstoppable at IMDb
• Unstoppable at AllMovie
• Unstoppable at Rotten Tomatoes
• Unstoppable at Metacritic
• Unstoppable at Box Office Mojo