A Brain not a Train Out of Control
Not to be confused with Unstoppable, the more recent Denzel Washington movie, "Unstoppable" from 2004 saw Wesley Snipes playing a former special ops CIA agent who is mistaken for someone else and drawn into a high stakes drug deal involving FBI agents and former agents. What does that mean, well I could say it is an update on Hitchcock's often used theme of an innocent man as it certainly has elements of that idea. But in truth "Unstoppable" is nothing more than entertaining action movie which has some interesting ideas but also is pretty illogical when you get down to the nitty gritty.
Dean Cage (Wesley Snipes - Undisputed) has been retired by the CIA as he has been left psychologically traumatized by the death of his friend Scott (Cristian Solimeno) whilst on ops in Bosnia and to make matters more complicated he is in love with Scott's sister, det. Amy Knight (Jacqueline Obradors). But when Dean is mistaken for someone else he not only finds himself dragged into some shady dealings by former agents who injected him with a top secret mind control drug which makes him think he is back in Bosnia just before Scott's death. With the drug destined to kill him unless he is given the antidote Amy must try and find him and the antidote before it is too late.
There are a lot of nice ideas going on in "Unstoppable" and whilst predominantly an action movie these ideas do a good job of keeping it mentally interesting. From Dean carrying the weight of Scott's death on his shoulders to the power of the mind control drug he was injected with there is at least storyline between the action. How logical that storyline is, well that is questionable because when you think about it it does begin to fall apart. None more so than that the mind control drug is so powerful that you could easily tell Dean to do anything but when two henchmen try to stop him from running they don't think of this. Never the less at least there is storyline and drama and whilst not a great deal of tension you do get the sense of the clock ticking as time is running out.
But as mentioned "Unstoppable" for all these ideas is really an action movie and it is again a bit hit and miss because whilst there are some nice chase scenes and fights there are also some action scenes spoilt by artificial effects. There is also the illogical side to this as well as in one scene where Dean is being questioned in a hospital room he sees it as the cave he was held in Bosnia and everything seems to match, pipes are in the right place in the ceiling and doors are in the exact same place. Now whilst that does make it annoyingly coincidental it does allow for some enjoyable and slightly amusing action scenes.
Other than that well considering what Wesley Snipes is capable off he is nothing more than solid in "Unstoppable". In fairness for all the writing the character of Dean Cage is a bit of a cliche and whilst not a thin character is not that interesting. But it is the same through out and whilst there are various recognizable faces in "unstoppable" such as Kim Coates, Kim Thomson and Stuart Wilson their characters border on the ordinary even that of Amy who whilst grabs your attention because Jacqueline Obradors is attractive is nothing more than a cliche.
What this all boils down to is that "Unstoppable" is a solid but forgettable action flick, a reasonable Friday night beer and pizza movie which will entertain but be forgotten by the next morning.
