I am not quite sure how I was able to see this movie, as the release date is 11-12-10, but yet my theater had a showing Saturday at 730pm, so I noticed and went! I will not get in depth until it actually comes out mainstream but will offer two thoughts.
Great action movie. Lots of action, any adrenaline junky will love it.
If you are a railroader, prepare for a comedy. Not really a single thing correct about the actual railroad operations side of things. Im sure they had to do this for Joe Schmo but it gets pretty obvious.
Overall a pretty good movie, just major railroad holes. Overcome those and I recommend it!
As friend of my saw it yesterday and assessed it very similarly.
I can’t speak with any authority since I’ve only seen the trailer, not the full film… but then again, I’d guess that statistically, the majority of people will only see the trailer and will never see the movie… anyway, it seems to paint the picture that trains are dreadfully dangerous and doesn’t reflect reality. Yes, the movie was “loosely” based on a true situation, but it certainly appears to have had a lot of Hollywood added to it.
Denzel lost a few notches of respect from me for doing a schlock movie like this.
The funny thing is, what RR would participate with the production company to make a movie that paints RR’s so negatively? I guess they flashed enough cash under somebody’s nose.
I just saw the movie and loved it. I’m a pilot, and I always nitpick aviation movies, so I’m sure rail fans will nitpick this movie, but I liked it’s emphasis on blue collar rail roaders and really trying to do an accurate job and not dumb down the movie too much.
Saw the movie tonight and I have to say I thought it was pretty good. I do think they were allot of holes in terms of RR operating procedures, but they got the lingo down pretty good such as calling a siding “the hole.” Finally It’s Hollywood I think they did get some railroad consolation but like all things Hollywood it was exaggerated.
A basic rule of watching movies: if you know anything at all about the subject, watch as if it were a comedy. I was a road racing official for 30 years and what they do to most racing movies is amazing. I cannot watch most racing movies, after a while I give up. TV is even worse. On one “Quincy” episode they had a crash start at Riverside and end in Pheonix. And that was realistic compared to other scenes.
Good racing films?
“Grand Prix” - hackneyed romantic plot line but realistic race scenes. Filmed at the sites of the races in Europe. Only film I have seen of the banking on the old Monza banking. Funny thing is that some race incidents in the film, which seemed overdone, were replicated in reality the next year, including Lorenzo Bandini’s death.
“The Last American Hero” - Early career of Junior Johnson, NASCAR legend. From bootlegger to successful racer. Soundtrack by Jim Croce.
The best of them all: “Le Mans” - Same basic romantic plot as “Grand Prix” but much better done. Except for two quick crash shots, all the race action was shot during the actual race. And, almost at the end, Steve McQueen utters the basic truth about racing: “It’s a professional blood sport. It can happen to you. And then it can happen to you again.”
Saw this yesterday, great action flick w/ lots of train shots. Sure the more rabid foamers will be all over this for inaccuracies, but most people will just see this as a fun popcorn action film, read the Yahoo User reviews, which are posted by you and me not pro critic and it was getting solid A & B scores, even the pro critics were giving it good reviews including the main newspaper film critic here who hates everything, thats quite an achievement for what is basicly a train film!
Its too bad Denzel forgot it was a railroad movie. Little things, such as not using the cab radio and instead using a portable, just make it painful to watch from that standpoint. AND STOP USING THE TERM COASTER!
Unstoppable: Now barreling toward a theater near youBy David Lustig
Published: November 12, 2010
Denzel Washington charges across the top of a moving tank car in the movie “Unstoppable,” in theaters today. Photo by Robert Zuckerman, Twentieth Century Fox
Unstoppable is not a train movie; that’s the first thing you should know. It’s an action movie, just like every other suspense-filled Hollywood blockbuster you’ve ever seen. The only difference in this film is that the central premise is not a sinking ship or a burning building or a crippled airliner, but a runaway train, one that more than lives up to the movie’s title.
Don’t enter the theater expecting a documentary on railroad operations. You need to go into Unstoppable with a Mission Impossible mindset, not the mindset of a railroad rules examiner. The movie took the kernel of a possible scenario, layered it with every plot cliché in the screenwriter’s handbook, and wrapped it up in full-blown
I went to see it yesterday at the local Movie Tavern. Almost missed it as my ticket stub had theater 5 on it, but theater 5 had another movie sign at the door with Unstoppable at theater 7. Went to theater 7, and five minutes after the movie was supposed to start, I went back out to the hallway and asked an employee which theater it was in. Turns out it was 5. They’d just messed up on the signs. Got in and found a seat just as the commercials were finishing and the trailers started.
I enjoyed the movie very much. While there were some inaccuracies in regards to railroading and operating trains, I was able to overlook those and allow the movie to take me into the story and take me on an exciting ride of a movie experience. I’m looking forward to the DVD when it comes out.
One thing I got to thinking about after the movie was how movies don’t accurately portray some things regarding railroad operations, and I think there are two reasons. One, they want to simplify things so that they don’t lose their audience. Two, they don’t want to give out too much information on railroad operations that somebody might be tempted to use after the movie to do harm to railroads.
My wife and I went and saw it last night (her idea). Definately enough action to keep any action junkie paying attention. Definately a couple of pieces of the story that had “artistic license” written on them, but this is not a documentary. One of the more obvious ‘oopsies’: a 5,000 HP SD40-2? WOW!
I’d say it’s worth a watch, and we’ll be looking for the DVD.
Frankly, I’m not sure most railfans are savvy enough to grasp all the inaccuracies of this movie. I saw it last night and more than once leaned over to my wife and whispered, “That is SOOOO against the rules.” But I’ve been a rail for almost 16 years, just like your being a pilot. I don’t think I could nitpick an aviation movie even though I know a little something about airplanes. I do know something about railroading, more than I ever knew as a railfan. That said, it’s still an exciting movie, never boring.
The best part about The Last America Hero is that they included real racing footage of Bobby Allison and Richard Petty banging on each other at Martinsville.
And, I think the same way when they do a film about airplanes. Hollywood has taken the same ‘if it bleeds it leads’ attitude as the media. The reporting of aircraft and railroads shows the lack of knowledge the reporters have on the subject. Just my opinion, but most reporters of today haven’t a clue what they are talking about.
If you are going to report on a subject you should at least have basic knowledge of it.
I went to see Unstoppable last night, and I thought it was overall a great film!
I enjoyed it immensely. The pace of the action was great, and the special effects were very convincing (although that one really huge explosion was both gratuitous and unlikely…) with the relative lack of CGI. Both Denzel Washington and Chris Pine were excellent, and played very believable characters. I also thought the level of back-story that was provided for each character was enough to get a sense of who they were, and why they were the way they were, but not so much as to detract from the pacing of the movie.
Some bits were hard to believe, and as someone who is reasonably knowledgeable about railroading, I could pick out plenty of little flaws. For example, as someone pointed out before, Denzel’s SD40-2 is apparently rated at 5000hp! Or perhaps his presence in the cab adds about 2,000 horses…
While there were a lot of little things that I could just laugh off (like the references to train numbers by the locomotive cab numbers for example), I found the overall presentation of the railroad’s operation in this case to be dramatically better than your average Hollywood representation. For example, I was glad to hear them use plenty of railroad specific terminology (correctly) without feeling the need to dumb it all down for the audience.Yes, the whole situation was greatly dramatized over reality (and the amount of media coverage portrayed in the film is unreal! How many reporters and news choppers did that town have??), and there were lots of inaccuracies with real railroad operations, but the feel of it was very believable and I think a relatively flattering portrayal of railroad workers (albeit not their upper management).
All in all, it was great fun to watch all those trains on the big screen, and as an action movie, this one scores high on my list. The situation was greatly over-dramatized, and the whole “based on true events” disclaimer at the start would better have read "very loosely
