I'll point out my own inconsistancies. I recently trashed the Rachel McAdams comedy Morning Glory, citing that it was formulaic past the point of acceptability. This year's cinema may not have delivered a more telegraphed and wholly predictable piece of (literally) one-track junk food than Unstoppable, but the fact of the matter is that I sat there with an enormous grin on my puss from the first frame. Unstoppable delivers some of the best mindless entertainment of the year.
The picture opens with working class Pennsylvanians, driving to work with WD-40 on their dashboard and griping about union troubles, and ends with leaping, celebratory Hooters girls. In between, an enormous, lightning-fast hunk of industry ("a missile the size of the Chrysler Building!") blazes to its inevitable, explosive conclusion. Denzel Washington and Chris Pine carry the blue-collar burden of saving America from its own greed, and Tony Scott swings his camera in preposterous, Ritalin-deprived arcs as though he mind-melded with Michael Snow after a particularly heavy binge of Jolt Cola.
Washington and Pine anchor the film well as bickering alpha males who swiftly bond when faced with the need to get the job done, but the star, truly, is Scott’s absurd camera. Tilt-shifts, drop-frame, slo-mo, axle-cam and every ridiculous camera angle you can think of is exploited to such freak show levels that Unstoppable can’t help but attain a level of absurdist art. Extra touches like the massive runaway train coinciding with the elementary school class trip just seal the deal.
Yes, at times I was laughing at Unstoppable, but I was also cheering it on, and this certainly makes for a much better time that not laughing with a movie that fails to entertain.
N.B.: There is a plot hole in Unstoppable the size of a container freight of zinc alloys, one that, were I to divulge, would somewhat spoil the ending. I mention it, however, because it didn't dawn on me for a full 48 hours after seeing the film. That's how effective the afterglow of Unstoppable is, a film impervious even to the logic of even basic storytelling.
