Unstoppable
(M), 115 minutes, 2/5
It can't be easy being film director Tony Scott.
Despite having been involved with numerous high-profile projects, including Beverly Hills Cop II, Days of Thunder, Crimson Tide and more recently The Taking of Pelham 123, Scott the younger has always had to live in the shadow of
older brother Ridley, whose far more illustrious CV includes Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator.
Sadly, the cliched, half-baked mish-mash of ideas which makes up Tony Scott's newest directorial effort, Unstoppable, will do nothing to redress the balance.
Unstoppable's marquee star is Denzel Washington - in itself normally a very good thing, but when Washington's already starred in a series of Scott-helmed films (Man on Fire, Deja Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123) it's just further proof of the lack of imagination on display here.
That's a shame because on the face of it the plot of Unstoppable has immense promise: thanks to human error, a half-mile-long freight train loaded with hazardous material ends up running unmanned towards a town, as well as a trainload of schoolchildren coming in the other direction.
It falls to rookie conductor Will Colson (Chris Pine) and veteran engineer Frank Barnes (Washington) to somehow find a way to bring the runaway train under control.
Sounds exciting, right? Unfortunately, Unstoppable's potential is rashly thrown away in a series of poorly constructed action film set pieces.
Washington is excellent, as always, and Pine does well for a relative newcomer, but even their performances in Unstoppable's main roles can't save this film from ending up as a trainwreck.
