Unstoppable (2010)

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1. 

   badblokebob

   Well, I enjoyed it, once it got going (there's a whole lot of needless pottering about in a train for the first half hour). Naturally it doesn't bear a huge resemblance to its real-life inspiration, though people criticising some bits might want to read up a bit:
   
   "The firing squad trying to hit the button was ridiculous." From Wikipedia's page on the real incident: "police shot at an Emergency Fuel Cutoff switch, although this had no effect because the button must be pressed for several seconds before the engine is starved of fuel and shuts down."
   
   "Pine is the unbalanced rookie with a heart, and Washington is the skilled veteran with the know-how and heart. Sound familiar ?" The film might make it extra cliched, but in real life there was "a crew of two, an engineer with 31 years of service and a conductor with one year's experience". Sometimes cliches are cliches cos they're true, eh. 12 years 8 months ago
2. 

   Siskoid

   Much of Unstoppable's building blocks come from true events, which happened in Ohio in 2001 (look up the CSX 8888 Incident), but give them to Tony Scott, and you'll reliably get a slick rip-roaring action flick out of it. Scott adds a number of incidents to make the story more exciting, and is perhaps harsher on the railway employees responsible than history ultimately was, but otherwise, engine 777 and the way it's dealt with, follow 8888's model. Along the way, we learn about the two leads' back stories, but I doubt we really care. The incident is the real star, and proceeding through various attempts to stop the runaway train before he derails and spills toxic chemicals all over Stanton, PA, is what it's really about. Casting actors who bring immediate personality to the screen is how Scott gets away with it - not just Denzel Washington, Chris Pine and Rosario Dawson, but Lew Temple, Ethan Suplee, Kevin Dunn and Kevin Corrigan all distinguish their characters quickly and efficiently. Perhaps not one of the great, memorable Tony Scott movies, but I can't deny it was an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride, and that's exactly what it was designed to be. 5 years 10 months ago
3. 

   Realenur

   Fun Facts: Tony Scott's salary went from 9 to 6 million to get green light. Denzel Washington would not accept cutting 4 million of his 20 million paycheck and temporarily left production until he got even more money. The budget ended at almost 100 million. 6 years 10 months ago

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