UNSTOPPABLE In Unstoppable, an unmanned runaway freight train, laden with toxic waste, is careening across Pennsylvania! There's another train with innocent schoolchildren on the same tracks! Who will save them? Denzel Washington and Star Trek's Chris Pine — that's who — under the direction of hectic action auteur Tony Scott. Train movies are as old as the movies themselves, and it's almost impossible to make a boring railroad flick. We expect — and Scott duly delivers — scenes of trains smashing through cars, trains smacking into other trains, and people trying to jump aboard moving trains from helicopters, trucks and other moving trains. Inevitably, Washington ends up leaping from atop one speeding boxcar to the next, all according to unstoppable formula. The movie is based on actual 2001 events, but it could just as well be set in the shining sun of Reagan's 1980s. It's like a compendium of classic commercials for Ford pickup trucks, Bud Light and Hooters (where, God help us, the daughters of Washington's character are working their way through college). That the veteran and the rookie railroad workers — two populist paladins — should take it upon themselves to stop the runaway train is no surprise. Yet Unstoppable also places the blame for this near-disaster on the little guy — not the corporate cost-cutting that's caused numerous rail accidents in the last two decades. Our heroes may save their jobs and their town, but their company's CEO certainly gets the larger bonus. (Brian Miller) (Citywide)

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