The Finest Hours

For F*** Magazine 

THE FINEST HOURS 

Director : Craig Gillespie
Cast : Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Eric Bana, Holliday Grainger, Kyle Gallner, John Magaro, John Ortiz, Josh Stewart
Genre : Drama
Run Time : 118 mins
Opens : 18 February 2016
Rating : PG (Some Intense Sequences)

Venture into the tumultuous waters of Cape Cod to witness of one of the most harrowing rescues in maritime history in this historical disaster drama. It is February 1952 and the S.S Pendleton, a T2 oil tanker, is caught in a severe storm off the Chatham coast, breaking clean in twain. Bernie Webber (Pine), a newly-engaged Coast Guard crewman, is dispatched by Chief Warrant Officer Daniel Cluff (Bana) to take his tiny lifeboat out to sea to rescue the Pendleton’s crew. Bernie takes Richard Livesey (Foster), Andrew Fitzgerald (Gallner) and Ervin Maske (John Magaro) with him. Aboard the severed stern section of the Pendleton, first assistant engineer Ray Sybert (Affleck) is forced to take charge, devising a method to keep what’s left of the ship afloat as long as possible. Bernie’s fiancé Miriam Pentinen (Grainger), along with the townsfolk of Chatham, await the safe return of Bernie, his crew and the men of the Pendleton, as their odds of survival grow slimmer by the minute.

            The Finest Hours is based on the book of the same name, subtitled “The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard's Most Daring Sea Rescue”, by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman. Director Craig Gillespie has delivered a resolutely old-fashioned adventure drama, harking back to the days “when men were men”, so to speak. While there’s definitely a certain dignity to The Finest Hours in its celebration of heroes who aren’t widely known to non-maritime history buffs, it’s also something of a drag in parts. There are individual sequences that are genuine nail-biters featuring convincing visual and special effects work, but in between those, there’s a curious dearth of momentum or urgency, particularly since this revolves around a time-sensitive rescue attempt. In fact, it’s only around 45 minutes into the film that Bernie and his crew actually get into their lifeboat and set sail.

            

While Pine is more Abercrombie pretty boy than Old Hollywood rugged, there’s a matinee idol quality to him that makes him an ideal candidate to portray the determined, courageous hero in a period adventure piece. That “Bawston” accent he’s attempting is iffy, though. The film doesn’t begin on the high seas, but rather by establishing the romance between Bernie and Miriam, hoping that this will be the emotional anchor. Unfortunately, it’s not a particularly compelling romance and this element of the film has been dramatized the most from how things really unfolded. Miriam is portrayed by Grainger as a headstrong, proactive woman, but when she charges into Cluff’s office to demand that he makes Bernie turn the lifeboat around, it comes off more as an annoyance than a loving act of concern. The trope of the worried significant other back home pining for our hero’s safe return is often unavoidable in films of this type, and the attempts to add to this are generally unsuccessful.

            Casey Affleck’s demeanour is not as traditionally masculine and heroic as that of his older brother Ben, but he does sell the role of someone who has to think fast and work hard under pressure. As the boss from out of town who is not generally well-liked, Bana has sufficient gravitas but noticeably wrestles with the character’s southern accent. The performances are generally serviceable but ultimately, there isn’t enough to distinguish most of the crew members of the Pendleton, or the men with Bernie in the lifeboat, for that matter.

            Michael Corenblith’s production design and Louise Frogley’s costume design bring a level of authenticity to The Finest Hours and in the grand scheme of movies billed as “based on a true story”, The Finest Hours makes relatively minor deviations from established history. This is director Gillespie’s second film for Walt Disney Studios, following sports drama Million Dollar Arm, also based on a true story. While The Finest Hours is Gillespie’s most ambitious film on the technical front, it pushes no boundaries in its narrative. The startlingly intense and immersive scenes of the tiny lifeboat getting ravaged by immense waves are thrilling, but the film never quite reaches the rousing, inspirational heights it’s aiming for.

Summary: Harking back to the disaster dramas of yesteryear, The Finest Hours has its riveting moments but the story, as remarkable as it is, ends up insufficiently impactful.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

            

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

For F*** Magazine

JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT 

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast:         Chris Pine, Keira Knightley, Kevin Costner, Kenneth Branagh, Nonso Anozie, David Paymer, Colm Feore, Gemma Chan, Karen David, Lee Nicholas Harris
Genre: Action, Thriller
Run Time: 108 mins
Opens: 16 January 2014
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language & Violence)

"Jack Ryan” – it’s as American a name as “Steve Rogers”, isn’t it? Our hero here is Captain Kirk rather than Captain America, Chris Pine stepping into the shoes once filled by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck. Unlike the last four Jack Ryan films, this one isn’t based on a novel penned by the late Tom Clancy, instead rebooting the franchise with an original story. Well, “original” as in “not based directly on a book”.


Jack Ryan is a junior financial intelligence analyst with the CIA, working undercover in a bank on Wall Street. Ryan was recruited by and answers to Naval Commander William Harper (Costner), and Ryan’s first mission in the field takes him to Moscow. Russian magnate Viktor Cherevin (Branagh) is masterminding a plot to collapse the US dollar and crash the global economy with a terrorist strike on Wall Street. Things get a little complicated when Ryan’s fiancée Cathy (Knightley) arrives in Moscow to spend the weekend with him.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is best described as conventional, but not to a fault. Anyone who’s seen a handful of action thrillers will recognise all the elements at play and granted, it’s hard to come up with something terribly fresh in this genre. The shootouts, the fisticuffs, the car chases, it’s all here. And yet, the film is several steps above feeling like it’s just going through the motions, and while “financial terrorism” doesn’t sound quite as exciting as “global thermonuclear war”, there are still some thrills to be had.


One of the main reactions when the trailer for this film was released was that Jack Ryan had been turned into a run-of-the-mill espionage action hero, more Robert Ludlum than Tom Clancy. And yes, while there are moments in the film that seem straight out of the gritty, shaky-cam-infused Bourne/Daniel Craig Bond playbook (that fight in the hotel bathroom in particular), Jack Ryan is still an analyst, still a PhD-holder and still does smart-people stuff. The film also sticks surprisingly closely to Ryan’s background in the books: he’s a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps whose military career is cut short by a helicopter accident in the line of duty, and he goes on to join the CIA and take a position in a Wall Street bank.

Branagh isn’t the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of directors who’d make action thrillers but, aided by veteran second-unit director and stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong, Branagh does well here. The film’s opening quickly and efficiently establishes all the back-story on the Jack Ryan character we need to know and there’s a briskness and energy to the proceedings. The whole thing is a fairly straightforward affair but, in this age of overly-convoluted blockbusters, perhaps a coherent, semi-plausible spy thriller isn’t such a bad thing.

Pine is as charismatic and watchable as he usually is, giving us a hero who’s still learning the ropes and isn’t fully sure of himself just yet. He doesn’t quite make the role his own, but perhaps he will with time, and he is more interesting in the part than Affleck was in The Sum of All Fears (though Ford probably still is the best Jack Ryan so far). Costner makes a good authority figure, seasoned and watchful, protective over Ryan but never mollycoddling the recruit. Knightley struggles a little with an American accent and yes, the part is pretty much “the girlfriend”, but she and Pine have sufficient chemistry and, at the very least, she gets more involved in the plot than many characters of this type do. The relationship between Ryan and Cathy is believable, and Costner gets to deliver the fantastic line “This is geo-politics, not couples therapy!”

Branagh pulls double duty: the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art-trained thespian not only directs but plays the villain, going from Prince of Denmark to Oligarch of Russia. The character is a stereotype through and through, thick accent, ruthlessness, love for vodka, use of a light bulb as a torture implement… he might as well be a Bond villain. This reviewer kinda misses villains of this sort in espionage thrillers; in this age where every bad guy is “morally ambiguous”, it’s nice to have a character like Cherevin to root against and to hear him utter lines such as “Partnerships are delicate, Mr. Ryan. Sometimes they end violently” and “You think this is game, Jack?!”



Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit was pushed from a Christmas 2013 release date to Janu-“dump month”-ary, but it does feel like something that could have occupied a late-summer spot as something to see after all the humongous blockbusters have left the theatres. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before but director Branagh manages to balance a somewhat old-fashioned spy thriller sensibility with a post-Bourne style, fashioning a palatable, entertaining fifth outing for the heroic analyst.

SUMMARY: Rather generic but still enjoyable, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit benefits from solid direction and an entertaining villainous turn from Kenneth Branagh; Chris Pine a serviceable replacement for Ben Affleck.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Star Trek Into Darkness

For F*** Magazine, Singapore

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

Director: J. J. Abrams
Cast: Chris Pine, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Alice Eve, Peter Weller, Bruce Greenwood
Genre: Sci-Fi, Fantasy
Run Time: 123 mins
Opens: 16 May 2013
Rating: PG-13

With 2009’s Star Trek, director J. J. Abrams had set a course for the future of the series with a film that thoroughly invigorated what was, up to that point, largely seen as a flagging franchise. References to Star Trek in popular culture had been relegated to jokes about basement-dwelling man-children squinting through coke-bottle glasses, and it was a widely-held stereotype that “Trekkies” (the preferred term is apparently “Trekkers”) just weren’t ‘cool’. Love it or hate it, Star Trek ’09 made the series accessible to the masses and perhaps the sexy young cast, the action sequences and the lens flares were just a way of helping the movie-going public at large let down their collective guards and learn to appreciate this cornerstone of science fiction through new eyes.

With Star Trek Into Darkness, Abrams and his cast and crew continue to blaze a trail through the cinematic cosmos. We begin right in the middle of the action, just as the preceding movie did – only this time, we follow the crew of the Enterprise as they embark on a misadventure on the planet Nibiru. Kirk (Pine) and Bones (Urban) get pursued by angry spear-wielding natives as Sulu (Cho) and Uhura (Saldana) lower Spock (Quinto) into an active volcano on the brink of eruption in order to neutralize it with a cold fusion device. Just another day in the office for them, then.




Kirk and company return to Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, where the higher-ups are none too happy about the recklessness they displayed on Nibiru. This is interrupted by a new threat: an unstoppable one-man terror cell who goes by the name of “John Harrison” (Cumberbatch). Kirk leads the crew of the Enterprise in pursuit of Harrison, armed with 72 photon torpedoes and with newbie Dr Carol Marcus (Eve), daughter of Starfleet head Admiral Marcus (Weller), on board. Chief Engineer Scotty (Pegg) is suspicious of the contents of said weapons but his concern is initially unheeded. What follows is a dangerous quest that takes our heroes to the Klingon homeworld of Kronos (or Qo'noS), leading them to the discovery of the torpedoes’ secret payload and the truth behind John Harrison’s beef with Starfleet.

Now, this is how you make a summer blockbuster. A tentpole sci-fi action flick doesn’t have to be two hours of mind-numbing, cacophonous dross. Abrams, along with writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof and the countless others involved have brought us a film that is fresh, relentlessly exciting and overflowing with white-knuckle action, and none of this at the expense of a compelling story or well-drawn characters. From the very first minute, this reviewer was yanked right into this fantastical world. Abrams all but announces “buckle up, because it’s going to be one hell of a ride” – and what a ride Star Trek Into Darkness is.




The Star Trek series has a magnificent legacy and has had an immeasurable impact on the genre, and to chuck all that away for all flash and no substance would be something of a crime. That’s not the case here. Sure, there seems to be barely a minute to stop and catch one’s breath, but that’s probably preferable to a film that drags on and on any day of the week. The film has no shortage of pizazz in the form of stunning visual effects work, witty banter and edge-of-your seat near misses galore. Despite having “darkness” in its title, this flick is far from dour or depressing. References, homages and shout-outs are skilfully weaved into the fabric of the story and some may disagree, but this reviewer feels this iteration of Trek actually is very respectful of what went before – just not slavishly so.

One of the many things the first film got right was its casting, with the Enterprise staffed not by a troupe of impressionists, but by actors who got the spirit of the characters they were portraying but weren’t afraid to put a bit of a spin on things. The opening sequence is a brilliant way to reacquaint audiences with the characters without an exposition-heavy recap. We get the sense that these guys are family now, and like any family they have their idiosyncrasies, but they certainly feel more at home on the bridge, in the engineering bay or wherever than they did as fresh faces in the first film.



In this movie, Captain Kirk truly comes into his own as leader of a starship crew and father to his men, Pine further proving there’s more to him than just his handsome mug. Sure, Kirk’s still the brash, womanising guy we all love (we catch him in bed with two be-tailed alien sisters) but there is character growth to be had. The ever-uneasy friendship between Kirk and Spock also gets a fair amount of play, and there are some great moments between the two, ranging from casual brickbats to a pretty dramatic bit near the end of the film. Quinto conveys Spock’s struggle to get in touch with his human side, his resistance to emotion driving a wedge between him and Uhura, but never hits us over the head with this.




Just as in the earlier film, everyone gets a chance to strut his or her stuff – for example, Sulu even gets to be acting captain. Simon Pegg as Scotty and Karl Urban as Bones in particular stand out in this one, both bringing different brands of comic relief to the proceedings while functioning as far more than merely “the funny guys”. Bones mentions that he once performed a Caesarean on a Gorn and delivered octuplets. It’s a funny bit that’s also a nice nod to the original series.  Speaking of alien species, there’s a tribble which turns out to be integral to the plot. This is also brilliant.

Of course, the attention is square on Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain of the piece. Suffice it to say that fangirls of his (who call themselves “Cumberbitches”) will not be disappointed. The guy is a riveting actor, one who knows when to chew just the right amount of scenery in order to not come off as silly. There has been a spate of more “intellectual” villains in blockbuster movies as of late, but Cumberbatch does enough to differentiate himself from the bunch and Harrison isn’t just all brains and no brawn – he single-handedly takes on a Klingon patrol in one action sequence.




Star Trek Into Darkness is such a thrill that this reviewer left the theatre kind of breathless, but also really pumped. It’s a big, big movie, but not the kind that’s an extravagant insult to the intellects of audiences everywhere. Abrams has crafted a sequel that ups the game and elicits cheers, laughter, goosebumps, excited fist-pumping and even a tear or two at all the right moments. And isn’t that warp effect just so sparklingly beautiful?

SUMMARY: J. J. Abrams has assembled everything needed for an involving, supremely entertaining big-ticket picture and somehow made it even more than the sum of its parts. It’s such an impressive ship that even Scotty would be jealous.

RATING: 5 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong

Star Trek Into Darkness: All Hands on Holodeck

As published in F*** Magazine, Issue 39 (April 2013)

---

(Text)

ALL HANDS ON HOLODECK

The key personnel of Star Trek Into Darkness report for duty
By Jedd Jong 14/3/13

What good is a ship without its crew? Not very much. Yes, even the sleek and shiny Constitution-class USS Enterprise NCC-1701 wouldn’t be able to get a lot done in the name of the Federation with an empty bridge (or an empty engineering section, transporter room, sickbay and so on, for that matter). F*** takes a glance at the men, women and aliens who get stuff done aboard the ship – plus the new villain they’re taking on, and the man at the helm behind the scenes.

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK
Played by Chris Pine

One of the most iconic characters in science fiction history, the role was originated by the inimitable William Shatner, and as the younger iteration, Chris Pine had his work cut out for him. In Star Trek (2009), we witnessed Kirk’s beginnings, from his birth aboard a medical shuttle in the midst of a space battle (in which his own father bravely sacrifices his life) to his rebellious childhood and even more rebellious young adulthood, until the responsibility of captaining a starship was thrust upon him. Kirk is brash and headstrong, but is dedicated to his post and to his ship and will eventually become a father to his men.

On Kirk’s role in the new film, co-star Karl Urban comments, “in the first movie Kirk earns his captaincy, in this movie he has to own it”.  It looks like Kirk won’t be allowed to get too comfy in that nice big chair of his after all.

Pine explains that “Kirk really has to face his self-worth in this film. If he’s capable or not of leading, and from the first one at least, is a big, big transition and gives him a lot of different places to go, I think he experiences and sees absolute evil in this film and a lot of that is related to his deep fear and sense of vulnerability.”

JOHN HARRISON
Played by Benedict Cumberbatch

So, what is the “absolute evil” Pine refers to? Speculation is rife as to the true identity of “John Harrison”, the villain whom the crew of the Enterprise will be pitted against in Into Darkness. Is he Khan? Is he Gary Mitchell? A Klingon is disguise? Everyone is intent on keeping mum, but from the trailers we do know that this formidable foe is an ex-Starfleet member turned brilliant extremist hell-bent on revenge.  English actor Benedict Cumberbatch describes the character as having “a real Hannibal Lecter quality to him” and promises his portrayal will be “genuinely intense and scary”. The fact that he recorded his audition tape on a friend’s iPhone in his kitchen will probably do nothing to diminish that.

“In terms of Benedict, he’s an incredible actor if you’ve ever seen Sherlock, he’s unbelievable,” director JJ Abrams enthuses. “And he’s someone whom I think just brings an entirely new and intense energy and yes, he’s angry in certain moments, but he’s also remarkably rational and wildly, insidiously brilliant and part of the fun of this bad guy is he’s not just a raving lunatic, he’s someone who actually, you have conversations and can get seduced by.”

Sequels usually place the focus on their villains, and Eric Bana’s Nero in Star Trek (2009) was a more primal, rage-filled tyrant, it seems that John Harrison will be a cerebral, manipulative mastermind to be reckoned with. Pine sums it up like this: “he is just as intelligent and logical as Spock, but he is also one very bad mother***er.” Yikes.

COMMANDER SPOCK
Played by Zachary Quinto

The rational, cool-headed half-human half-Vulcan science officer of the Enterprise has always been the perfect foil to Captain Kirk. Spock was memorably portrayed by Leonard Nimoy – the actor was initially uncomfortable with the pop culture icon status the character had taken on and wanted to distance himself from it, but grew to embrace the character and appeared as the older Prime Universe counterpart of Spock alongside Quinto in Star Trek (2009).  Nimoy was impressed with Quinto’s take on Spock and the two have since become friends.

A key action sequence in Into Darkness will see Spock descending into a volcano to attempt to neutralize it before it ends up destroying a planet. Kirk and Spock’s relationship has been similarly volatile, with Spock taking an immediate dislike to the Captain who would eventually become his best friend, after Kirk cheated on the “unwinnable” Kobayashi Maru test Spock had programmed. According to Quinto, their bond will grow stronger in this film. “Kirk really earns his leadership; Spock really earns an understanding of friendship.”

A brief section of the Japanese trailer for the film has led fans to wonder if Spock might face a fate similar to the one in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. So, will Spock be able to live long and prosper past this one? On his Twitter account, Quinto says “simmer down kids. Rumours are rumours for a reason…Let’s let the second movie come out before we talk about a third...”

LT. NYOTA UHURA
Played by Zoë Saldaña

As the Enterprise’s communications officer, Uhura is an expert in Xenolinguistics with a keen ear for alien languages. The part was originally played by Nichelle Nichols in what was considered a landmark for women of colour on television. Nichols was personally affirmed by Martin Luther King Jr., a big fan of the original Star Trek series who felt Uhura served as an important role model for African-American women and children across the United States. Nichols graciously said of Zoë Saldaña, “not only is she one of the most beautiful women on the planet, she’s an incredible actress. When I met her, it just clicked like that.”

Star Trek (2009) officially made a romantic pairing out of Uhura and Spock, something which fans either hated or decided to roll with. Saldaña hints that the relationship may not go all that smoothly, saying “whether they’re together or not in this movie, that will remain to be seen.”

Commenting on the dynamics between the two, JJ Abrams remarks, “it’s a challenge I think to be a modern, strong-willed intelligent woman dating a Vulcan who is, above all, logical and rational and so while he may be reliable and loyal and intelligent and true, he’s also someone for whom logic might get in the way of other things, and so many things are tested in this movie; so is their relationship.”

Saldaña adds that “there’s a lot of humanity that she provides to his character in this film, it warms it up more and there’s a lot of precision that Spock provides to Uhura. Kirk and I are in the same position where we learn the same lessons from Spock and we’re also able to teach him the same lessons, which is “loosen up man, loosen up a little bit!””

DR. CAROL MARCUS
Played by Alice Eve

New to the team is English actress Alice Eve as Dr Carol Marcus. The character previously appeared in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, played by Bibi Besch. In that film, she was among the Federation’s foremost molecular biologists, working on the ambitious Project Genesis that was central to the film’s plot. Marcus was romantically involved with Kirk and bore his son, David.

“Kirk loves his blonde women,” Chris Pine observes.  However, it seems that not too much emphasis will be placed on the potential romance. “There’s much flirting and there’s definitely a connection there but what I would say is that this film is so big and the plot moves so fast and there’s such action to be had that there’s not really much time to explore (the relationship)”. According to him, Carol Marcus is “a hyper-intelligent doctor and it’s her scientific knowledge that really plays a key role in this film.”

Carol’s father Admiral Marcus will also appear in the film, played by Peter Weller (aka RoboCop).

JJ ABRAMS
The Director

Jeffrey Jacob Abrams returns to the director’s chair after resurrecting the Star Trek franchise with the 2009 film. Pretty much cementing his status as modern day geek god, he’ll also be taking on Star Wars Episode VII, which might force fans from both sides of the galaxy to sit around campfire and begrudgingly sing “Kumbaya”. It remains to be seen if it’s too much power for one Hollywood super-nerd – but odds are JJ will do just fine. After all, he has admitted to growing up a Star Wars fan, not a Star Trek one.

Speaking about reconciling the scope of the sequel with the smaller character dynamics, Abrams says “this movie is infinitely bigger than anything I’ve been involved (with), this feels like everything I’ve done before times ten, rolled into one. The biggest challenge in doing this movie was figuring out how to do it because the script was so big, but the thing that made me want to do it was how intimate it was, it was a simultaneously huge thing in scope and then a small thing in terms of emotionality and interactions and relationships.”

The director is not about to get on a high horse – far from it. “The original series…is still the platform we stand on and the shadow we stand under. We are respectful of it and see it as something to aspire to. But at the same time we don’t just want to be a great impersonation of what has gone before.” He also hints that audiences should expect the unexpected. “In the first film we find our own separate offshoot timeline and anything can happen here without ever affecting that (the Prime Universe), so the fate of these characters is much more in flux.”
While some Trek purists may turn up their noses at the reboot, there is no denying that under Abrams’ guidance, the franchise has become a lot more accessible to the public at large, and it can be said that he’s made Star Trek cool again. Maybe the needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few after all.

Also returning are Karl Urban as Dr Leonard “Bones” McCoy, Simon Pegg as chief engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, John Cho as helmsman Hikaru Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Ensign Pavel Chekov and Bruce Greenwood as former Captain of the Enterprise, Christopher Pike.

And yes, we know the Holodeck originated with Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Unstoppable

UNSTOPPABLE

2010

Starring: Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson

Directed by: Tony Scott

20^th Century Fox

           

The first image that comes onscreen is that of white text on a black background: “INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS”. In 2001, train CSX #8888 left Walbridge, Ohio’s Stanley Yard and embarked on a 66-mile journey through northwest Ohio – with nobody at the controls. Unstoppable takes the incredible premise, runs with it, and indeed doesn’t stop.

            Rookie train conductor Will Colson (Pine) punches in on his first day at work, and immediately earns the ire of the older workers who fear that they will be displaced by Colson and those like him. As such, veteran engineer Frank Barnes (Washington), Colson’s new partner, appears not to take too well to him. Barnes is affable but perhaps a bit salty, and the two men struggle a little to work as a team.

            In the meantime, two hostlers at Fuller Yard hastily attempt to move a train out of the way to make way for an excursion train filled with schoolchildren. In their hurry, they do not connect the air brakes and the train leaves the yard for the main line unmanned. Train yardmaster Connie Hooper (Dawson) sends the hostlers after the train to stop it.

            However, the runaway train begins to go under power, and hurtles full speed ahead. This, combined with its potentially hazardous cargo of molten phenol, threaten to wreak havoc if the train reaches the more populated towns that lie right ahead of the farmlands along the line.

            Connie’s boss, Vice-President of the AWVR railway line Oscar Galvin (Kevin Dunn)  seems more concerned about the potential financial losses that could be incurred for the company, and authorizes a poorly-planned attempt to stop #777 with a lashup of two locomotives travelling ahead, while another employee attempts to board the train and enter the train cockpit, descending from a helicopter.

            The attempt goes awry, and the train continues on unfazed. Barnes realises that he and Colson could have a chance-the only chance left-at stopping the train, and hatches an ambitious and dangerous plan. The rookie and the veteran have to pool their collective wits and skill in order to stop the hurtling steel beast-while Connie and their loved ones look on in anguish as the story is covered on the news.

            Chasing after a runaway train for two hours may not seem like the best way to spend a night at the cineplex, and it probably isn’t. Unstoppable could be best described as a prolonged Discovery Channel documentary-style re-enactment, except with a much bigger budget and A-list stars. The film feels real and gritty, with the film tinted a slight greyish hue and the camera giving us a look at the uncompromisingly unglamorous Pennsylvania suburbs and industrial districts.

            While there are no big surprises to be had, a sizeable part of the movie’s appeal is how relatable the characters feel, even when flung into slightly larger-than-life scenarios. It’s a film where the heroes are blue-collar workers, not Hollywood movie stars. And it is certainly better than Tony Scott’s previous train-related film starring Denzel Washington, the mediocre remake The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.

            Here, instead of being a dispatcher stuck in an office, Washington, along with Chris Pine, is at the controls. Denzel Washington has perhaps moved a little past his action hero days, and as an ordinary man who has been driving trains for 28 years, he is quite believable. It’s harder for Pine to shake off his screen idol looks though, but he tries his best. Both have good chemistry and forge a credible mentor-rookie relationship that is neither overly hostile nor buddy-buddy.

            Rosario Dawson is very good as the yardmaster with a potential disaster on her hands. She makes for an excellent career woman under pressure, remaining level-headed, responsible and in charge in the face of a life-or-death situation. Even though her character is stuck in the confines of the dispatch room, she makes do. Kevin Dunn is also alright as the stock corporate greaseball type who watches from his swanky office in suit and tie as the drama unfolds, and doesn’t seem to help.

            The film also contains aspects of a good old-fashioned action thriller: the intensity feels heightened yet real and the action set-pieces are staged with fine pacing and carry much weight. When the #777 bashes through the obstacles in its path, you can truly feel the heft of that machine barrelling towards the screen.

            I like seeing helicopters in action onscreen, and there are several here, including news helicopters. News footage is spliced in as the events unfold, so not only do we get a riveting first-hand view of the drama, we also see it as someone watching on TV at home might. This is surprisingly effective.

            The screenplay is also relatively tight. Nobody says more than they might in real life, and there are few superfluous lines of dialogue, as well as an appropriate smattering of brief humour. From a technical aspect, I readily bought into the film’s portrayal of the workings of locomotive transport, and at the same time, there isn’t so much techno-babble as to lose the audience entirely.

            Unstoppable succeeds mainly because it stays grounded, wheels-to-the-tracks, and puts across an exciting yet credible adventure, with a good sprinkling of emotion. That, supplemented by the judicious use of explosions.

RATING: 3.5/5 STARS

Jedd Jong Yue