The Thrilling Legacy of “Unstoppable”: Denzel Washington’s High-Stakes Action
The historic creative partnership between Denzel Washington and director Tony Scott began with the 1995 submarine action thriller Crimson Tide, a film that proved to be a commercial and critical success and cemented the actor’s status as a box-office draw. Washington and Scott would next collaborate on the 2004 action thriller Man on Fire, followed by the 2006 science fiction actioner Déjà Vu, and the 2009 action thriller The Taking of Pelham 123. The 2010 disaster action-thriller Unstoppable marked Washington and Scott’s fifth and arguably finest collaboration, serving as their last together and the final directorial effort from Scott before his untimely passing in 2012.
Unstoppable stars Washington as Frank Barnes, a veteran Pennsylvania rail engineer who, along with rookie train conductor Will Colson, played by Chris Pine, races against time to prevent a runaway freight train carrying hazardous chemicals from derailing in a heavily populated area. While Unstoppable was a commercial and critical success upon its theatrical release, over the last decade, Unstoppable has become a classic of the genre. This is a testament to Scott’s meticulous direction, and the fearless performances of Pine and Washington, who took great physical risks to create an impressively authentic atmosphere for the film.
While the pulse-pounding Unstoppable contains the dramatic license and exaggerations necessary for a thrilling adaptation of true events, the film remains faithful to the core details of its real-life inspiration – the CSX 8888 incident of 2001. In this event, a runaway train carrying toxic chemicals traveled for approximately 66 miles through northwest Ohio while completely unmanned. The 2001 accident was caused by a driver exiting the slowly moving train to adjust a misaligned switch, mistakenly believing he had engaged the train’s braking system. This event is recreated in Unstoppable, with Ethan Suplee’s railway yard worker Dewey making a similar error in switch operation, causing a freight train hauled by locomotive #777 (known as Triple 7) to run out of control.
The CSX 8888 train traveled for two hours at speeds reaching 50 miles per hour until a crew member on a second locomotive coupled with the runaway train and engaged its brakes, much like Denzel Washington’s character, engineer Frank Barnes, attempts to do in Unstoppable, with Chris Pine’s inexperienced train conductor Will Colson, who injures his right foot during the coupling attempt in the film. Furthermore, while the Unstoppable version of the runaway train results in the death of a railway engineer, no one was killed or seriously injured in the real-life incident.
Denzel Washington’s Seven Stunt Doubles on “Unstoppable”
Throughout Denzel Washington’s action movie career, he has shown a willingness to perform his own stunts, as seen in The Equalizer film series. However, filming Unstoppable proved especially challenging for Washington, as he suffers from a fear of heights. During the filming of Unstoppable, he was required to walk on top of a moving train for seven days, as director Tony Scott insisted on shooting the action sequences practically, without the use of visual effects.
While Washington is clearly visible running atop the runaway train in Unstoppable, he still required the assistance of seven stunt performers to complete the scenes, with a different stunt double needed for each day of practical train filming. By contrast, co-star Chris Pine performed his exterior train scenes without the aid of stunt performers. In a 2010 interview with the website blackfilm.com, Washington admitted to relying on stunt doubles, while jokingly expressing envy over Pine’s ability to perform his own stunts. Washington stated:
“I had seven stuntmen. When I read the script, I was thinking, ‘Why is the other guy the hero? I want to be that guy.’ As we kept creating the material, I thought, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be the guy jumping out of the helicopter. Chris should be that guy. I can see why he’s that guy.’ We had very experienced stuntmen. They did Casino Royale, they know how to jump out of helicopters. Chris made me mad because he did a lot of his own stunts. Punk!”
“Unstoppable” Almost Derailed Before Production
Given the immense success of Denzel Washington and Tony Scott’s previous collaborations, the production company behind Unstoppable, 20th Century Pictures (then known as 20th Century Fox), understandably showed great enthusiasm for the film. However, Unstoppable nearly stalled due to the studio’s insistence on cutting the film’s budget (initially set at nearly $110 million) while simultaneously reducing Washington and Scott’s salaries. He briefly exited the project after the studio asked Washington to cut $4 million from his then-standard $20 million per-film salary, but was later lured back with a better offer.
Washington and Scott’s most recent collaboration before Unstoppable was The Taking of Pelham 123, which grossed approximately $150 million worldwide against a production budget of over $100 million and received mixed reviews. Unstoppable grossed nearly $168 million worldwide against a production budget of $85 million and received overwhelmingly positive reviews. In his enthusiastic 2010 review of Unstoppable, Roger Ebert admired how the 98-minute Unstoppable effectively and efficiently manufactured and sustained tension. Ebert wrote:
“When a freight train pulls out of a siding without a driver and accelerates to 70 miles an hour, you understand how Tony Scott’s ‘Unstoppable’ got its name. The movie is as relentless as that train, slowly gathering momentum before a final hour of nonstop suspense. As a piece of sheer craftsmanship, it’s superb.”