Henrick Vartanian
Reviewed by: Harrison Cheung
Leave it to director Tony Scott to make a runaway train an enjoyable if cliched action movie. UNSTOPPABLE stars Denzel Washington and breakout star, Chris Pine, who made his mark as the new Captain Kirk in the rebooted STAR TREK movie in 2008.
Loosely based on a real life runaway train incident that took place in Ohio in 2001, UNSTOPPABLE sets up the action outside Scranton, Pennsylvania. Washington stars as Frank, a cantankerous railroad engineer who is just weeks from forced early retirement. Pine plays Will, a young train conductor who’s first day on the job turns out to be more than he bargained for.
Director Scott, who had defined buddy action movies in the 1980s with TOP GUN and BEVERLY HILLS COP II, takes the blue collar world of railroading to a familiar camaraderie. It’s SPEED meets RUNAWAY TRAIN! Pine and Washington’s characters are practically lifted from a LETHAL WEAPON movie with their formulaic banter about bad marriages and retirement. But you know that the old veteran and the hot youngster will work together and begrudgingly become friends!
The tidy script by Mark Bomback (LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD) also demonizes the train company as coldhearted number crunchers who are more worried about the cost of a potential derailment to their bottom line and stock prices. 
For most of us unfamiliar with the true life derailment in Ohio, UNSTOPPABLE has a number of surprise twists that pile on like a disaster movie. Add a smart Rosario Dawson as the yardmaster, and you’ve got a cast and Tony Scott trademark action to make this movie greater than the sum of its tried and true parts.