Order of business #1: spoiler alert the size of the Chrysler Building.

Order of business #2: complete plot summary of Unstoppable.

Denzel Washington, see, he’s been railroadin’ for 28 years. He is the best and most railroady railroader the Pennsylvania railroad has ever seen, and now he’s just three weeks from retirement, which means that nothing could possibly go wrong. New Captain Kirk, he’s a rookie who’s down on his luck and currently estranged from his wife’s vagina.

“Sorry to break up charm school,” but it’s time to get some railroadin’ done! While Denzel and New Captain Kirk are discussing the finer points of The Real World: Pennsylvania Coal Country (“We’re out here in the real world—this ain’t training. In training, they just give you an F. Out here, you get killed”), Ethan Suplee and a ghost are busy fucking up the railroad big-time.

Ethan Suplee, one of a pair of numbnuts who are always screwing up (“You two numbnuts are always screwing up!”), is just supposed to be moving a train engine (“Number 777, otherwise known as triple-seven“) from one place to another place, but after he puts it on autopilot and hops out, an invisible ghost magically pushes the lever to “THROTTLE.” Then the train runs away, and since Ethan Suplee is too fat to run as fast as a train, the train becomes UNSTOPPABLE.

Okay. Next. The train is full of evil chemicals and headed for some urban areas where everyone (including orphans!) will surely die. The pair of numbnuts attempts to drive a truck alongside 777-otherwise-known-as-triple-seven and leap into its engine compartment, but they fuck it up, which means that this method of train stoppage will clearly never work. (NOTE TO EVERYONE EVER: “BECAUSE ETHAN SUPLEE DID IT WRONG THE FIRST TIME” IS NEVER A VALID REASON TO ABANDON A PLAN.)

Instead, everyone just runs around screaming for an hour, except for the railroad fat cats who are too busy playing golf to worry about dead orphans (except “What about the resulting stock devaluation?”). Then a concerned child with a subpar understanding of how train tracks work makes a great point: “It could be coming to our town next, and the high school’s right next to the train tracks!” When I said “great,” I was being sarcastic.

Then Denzel and New Captain Kirk drive another smaller train up next to the evil train and try pulling on it to make it stop. That doesn’t work. New Captain Kirk injures his foot. Then another minor character who you didn’t even remember existed (his name is “Ned”) drives up alongside 777 in a truck, and New Captain Kirk jumps from the truck into the engine compartment JUST LIKE ETHAN SUPLEE TRIED TO DO TWO FUCKING HOURS EARLIER. Then he stops the train. The state of Pennsylvania is so grateful that they award New Captain Kirk a new foot and access to his wife’s vagina. The end. Sorry you wasted your life. recommended

Lindy West was born an unremarkable female baby in Seattle, Washington. The former Stranger writer covered movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and much, much more....

24 replies on “Concessions”

  2. “Denzel Washington, see, he’s been railroadin’ for 28 years. He is the best and most railroady railroader the Pennsylvania railroad has ever seen”

    I didn’t know this movie was actually about trains, and when I read this I thought you were just pointing out that every one of Denzel’s movies are on rails and exactly the same.

  4. Aw, I think New Captain Kirk is cute. I hope he makes some respectable role choices soon. I liked Star Trek for the spectacle, Chris baby, but go prove that you can actually act so that I can justify seeing your movies.

  5. “The pair of numbnuts attempts to drive a truck alongside 777-otherwise-known-as-triple-seven and leap into its engine compartment, but they fuck it up, which means that this method of train stoppage will clearly never work.”

    This is one of my least favorite tropes in movies. thank you for addressing it.

  9. The only missing element is that the Ned guy, about 20 minutes in, pulls up to a bunch of cops in his truck and says “I have a plan, come with me,” to which they immediately escort him off at top speed (because he said he’s with the Railroad…)

    He disappears until the last 10 minutes of the movie, and as it turns out:

    His plans was to PULL UP NEXT TO THE SECOND LOCOMOTIVE THAT HE DID NOT KNOW WOULD BE FOLLOWING 777, TO GET A PASSENGER THAT HE WOULD HAVE NEEDED IN THE FIRST PLACE FOR HIS PLAN TO WORK, AND TO DRIVE UP TO THE TRAIN, FOR THIS PERSON HE DID NOT KNOW EXISTED / WHERE THEY’D BE, TO JUMP FROM HIS TRUCK INTO 777’s CAB.

    With cop cars exploding and flipping all around him.

    I was just angry.

  17. @16, there’s no specific “dead man’s switch” in locomotives like there is in subway systems and the like. There’s something more subtle called an “alerter”, but it can be — and has been — fooled. Directing the power of a locomotive engine toward movement and/or braking is a complicated business. This movie, while totally ridiculous, is based on a true story of an engineer who set his brakes on partway to slow down so that he could get out and set a switch manually while still moving — something that you’re not supposed to do, but which happens all the time — and then couldn’t get back on because he screwed up.

    http://kohlin.com/CSX8888/z-final-report…

    Note that while the train did carry on with no crew for 66 miles, it was going about 30 MPH, not 110, and the air brakes were partway on the whole time.

    The dead man’s switch on the NY subway was activated — and worked perfectly — just this year when a conductor died at the controls: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/0…

  18. @16

    I don’t know if they covered it in the movie, but in the real world incident, the deadman switch was disabled because the engineer activated the independant brakes.

  19. @19

    Close, but no cigar. The air brakes in the Crazy Eights incident were disabled, because the train was not intended to leave the yard. During regular intra-yard activity, the air break lines are not connected.

    Additionally, he didn’t “set his brakes on partway.” That train had a “dynamic breaking system” that basically uses the same engine energy to power the brakes as it does to drive the wheels. He mistakenly thought he enabled the DBS, then cranked up the engine, and hopped off to work a switch. Had DBS been active correctly, it would have applied maximum brakes. Instead, it applied maximum drive, and off she went.

  20. The only reason this movie exists is to lend ‘young handsome movie star’ the ‘serious actor gravitas of older movie star’. They make this movie 10-20 times a year.

    Half of Anthony Hopkins resume is to help market new beefcake product as a ‘serious actor’ in the form of Ryan Gosling, Cuba Gooding Jr., or Brad Pitt.

    This film marks Denzel Washington’s expiration date. He’s not a bankable product on his own anymore.

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