What I Watched -- Unstoppable

I guess I'm into suspense lately.  I just watched Buried, which was heart-pounding, and Harry Potter, which, while maybe not suspenseful exactly, was still an action movie.  And the other night I watched Unstoppable.  In it, a runaway freight train threatens to derail and spill its toxic and combustible chemicals all over the good citizens of Stanton, Pennsylvania.  The action starts about four minutes in.

I like Denzel Washington, who plays engineer and 28-year railroad vet Frank Barnes.  I knew nothing about Chris Pine, who plays newbie conductor Will Colson, but I like him now.  They're both a little lost in life, so together with the help of capable yard master Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson), they agree to go after the runaway.

Dad walked in about two thirds of the way through the movie.  It was obvious there were good guys.  "So who's the bad guy?" he asked.  Well, that's the thing about this movie.  There isn't one.  There's a bad train, but the train didn't do anything wrong.  There's the guy who let the train go, but he was stupid and lazy, not malicious.  The bad guy doesn't really exist.  Nor, for that matter, is there much blood - another oddity for an action movie.  But it works.

I know nothing about rail freight shipping, or about trains at all really.  It was neat to see how the yards and the tracks work.  I never knew there was someone called a yard master.  I've never seen what you do when you want to derail a train on purpose.  This is all cinematically enhanced, of course, but "based on real events."  Which the movie actually is! In 2001, CSX Locomotive 8888, unmanned and under power, led a 47-car freight train through Ohio for two hours, reaching a maximum speed of only about 50 miles per hour.  You can read the incident report here, or read the CNN coverage.

The cast also includes Jessy Schram of the TV series Life as Darcy Colson and Kevin Dunn (Samantha Who?) as Connie Hooper's boss, and Andy Umberger (Mad Men - lots of TV stars!), as well as a number of other people whose faces you'll know but names you probably won't: David Warshofsky, Kevin Corrigan, Kevin Chapman, Ethan Suplee.

Bottom line: a surprisingly good way to spend the evening.