Another Monday means another installment into our 2025 Review Stew! This week I am correcting a Tony Scott blindspot of mine, which also happens to be the last film he would direct. All aboard as we try to stop a railway disaster in…Unstoppable (2010).
Title: Unstoppable
Director: Tony Scott
Released: November 4, 2010 (Singapore)
Runtime: 1 hour 38 minutes
Available to stream on: MAX
Due to a botched switching in a northern Pennsylvania rail yard, engine 777 is now an unmanned runaway train. It’s heading south at full-speed with 39 freight cars behind it. What’s worse is that 8 of the 39 are full of molten phenol. This highly combustible chemical would absolutely devastate any populated area if a spill were to occur.
Meanwhile, engineer Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) and rookie conductor Will Colson (Chris Pine) are in engine 1206 moving freight cars. In fact, they’re heading north on the same path as runaway 777. However, at first they are under the impression that 777 is coasting along. As far as they know, it will easily be slowed downed and safely stopped.
Yardmaster Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson) is the one who breaks the news to Frank and Will. They’re on a collision course with runaway engine 777. Now Frank, the grizzled veteran, has to put a lot of trust into rookie conductor Will. Together, with the help of Connie at central command, they need to hatch a plan to save the southbound towns.
If 777 reaches the town of Stanton, it’ll be a disaster of epic proportions.
If that sounded like an incredibly simplistic plot, well, that’s because it is.
Unstoppable (2010) isn’t a complicated story to try and follow. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a lot of fun.
Denzel Washington and Chris Pine have great chemistry together. It’s a good thing too seeing as 95% of the movie is them inside of engine 1206. They both make it easy to buy-in to them as a team, even when we don’t necessarily know their entire backstory.
The supporting cast was also not only stacked but effective in their respective roles as well. Everyone from Rosario Dawson, a pre-problematic TJ Miller, Kevin Dunn, Ethan Suplee, and Kevin Corrigan, they all step-up and deliver solid performances. If anything, Rosario Dawson was underutilized and deserved a larger and/or more significant role.
Overall, Unstoppable (2010) is the kind of action movie that we need more of. In true Tony Scott fashion, it knows what it is and leans hard into it.
Had this been released in the ’90s, it probably would have been a lot more successful from a box office standpoint.
If nothing else, it would have made for a fun double feature of this and Speed.
So, have you seen Unstoppable (2010)?
If so, leave a comment below or reach out on Bluesky and let me know your thoughts!
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