Like the latter, the film almost works as a monster movie in the sense that the chief nemesis for our heroes is a seemingly unstoppable force. Scott films the movie with a bit of a music-video eye, creating a feel not too far off from a marriage of his own 2006 film Déjà Vu (which also featured Denzel) and that of the small town-centered Twister (1996). The plot follows Denzel Washington's veteran Frank Barnes and Chris Pine's rookie Will Colson on a high-speed race against time through the hills and forests of rural Pennsylvania. Regardless of the inflated reality of the film, Unstoppable actually works very well as a tense thriller. So, to say that Scott's fictionalized take on the event is embelished would be somewhat of an understatement. The real life event, however, starts somewhat similarly, but the true 2001 events not only took place in Ohio, but they also never saw the train even reach 50mph. The film involves a runaway, unmanned train that accidentally rolls out of a small town in Pennsylvania and barrels down the tracks at an alarming 70 miles per hour.
It seems like Hollywood is looking to real life for inspiration for motion picture stories a lot these days, and the latest 'Inspired By True Events' tale to grace the big screen is Tony Scott's Unstoppable.
