Action-packed entertainment

Unstoppable
DIRECTED BY: Tony Scott
STARRING: Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson
CERT: 12A
“TONY Scott couldn’t direct traffic,” wrote a snotty Irish film critic some years ago. Which says more about a certain brand of film critic than it does about the talents of Mr Scott.

Tony might not always play in the same league as his brother Ridley (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator) but any man who can make movies like Top Gun, Crimson Tide and True Romance is fine by me. More recently, his time travel crime thriller Deja Vu was a lot of fun too.
In his new film, Unstoppable, he directs not just a fine piece of entertainment but a lot of traffic too. Stick that in your pompous pipe and smoke it.
Scott’s traffic of choice recently has been the railroad kind. After The Taking Of Pelham 123, this is his second film in-a-row about trains. For that matter, it’s his second in-a-row about trains starring Denzel Washington. The difference is that, where Pelham 123 was a bit of a non-starter, Unstoppable is, well, a runaway from the off.
Inspired by actual events, meaning it bears at least a vague resemblance to something that happened for real, this is set on the railroads of Pennsylvania, where Earl Hickey’s dim brother Randy has somehow gotten a job as a train engineer. While moving a locomotive at the yard, he jumps from the cab to switch points and the train takes off without him.
No great hassle – it’s only a coaster. So yard manager Connie (Dawson) sends the cavalry out to board it and bring it in. Except the train is not coasting, it’s at full throttle and soon hits the main line at high speed, unmanned and hauling a half-mile-long cargo of dangerous chemicals. Or as Connie puts it, “A missile the size of the Chrysler building”. Which means nothing to me and probably nothing to the good people of Pennsylvania. Just one of those snappy lines screenwriters feel a strange urge to throw in there.
Anyway, Connie sets about clearing the tracks of traffic, including a passenger train full of school kids out on a trip. She also gets into a running battle with railway corporate boss Galvin (Kevin Dunn) about how best to stop the train before it hits the Stanton Curve and derails in the highly populated district. Obviously, Galvin and his monkeys are chiefly concerned with the economics.
Meanwhile down the line, veteran Frank Barnes (Washington) shares a freight cab and swaps life stories with new boy Will Colson (Pine). It’s a bad day for both men on the female front, Barnes forgot his daughter’s birthday and Colson is in a spot of bother with the law over an incident concerning his wife’s secret texting.
But not to worry, the boys are soon informed that they’re on course for a head-on collision with the runaway train. Which is somewhat similar to woman trouble but easier to deal with.
It also transpires that the lads might be the only ones who can stop this thing, of course and the news choppers will capture it all, giving Mr Scott a nice way to “narrate” the story while they’re at it. Better still, he does so without indulging too much in his recent habit of shaking his camera and chop-editing to the point of nausea.
As the blue-collar heroes, Washington and Pine (scoring another hit after Star Trek) do a fine day’s work and back at HQ, Rosario Dawson is watchable as ever.
This is not the kind of thing where you worry all that much about the acting or the subtleties of character development. No, this is about drama, suspense, breathless pace and great action set pieces. Like the hulking trains that thunder down the tracks, this is a big relentless beast of a film packed full of Tony Scott’s favourite chemical – adrenaline.
Of course, it’s carrying a fair few old clichés too, all the way to the whooping, air-punching finale. But when something is this well done, it’s easy to forgive a few sins.

London Boulevard
DIRECTED BY: William Monahan
STARRING: Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley, Ray Winstone
CERT: 16
Bar a small part in Crazy Heart, Colin Farrell hasn’t had a decent role in years. He will be waiting another while for a critical or box office hit because this unholy yoke of a thing is not it.
In London Boulevard he plays Mitch, a hard nut geezer just released from prison after a spell for GBH. He turns down an offer from his criminal friend Billy (Ben Chaplin) to get back into business and instead takes a gig as bodyguard and Mr Fix-It for movie star Charlotte (Knightley), whose allergy to the paparazzi has made her a bit of a recluse.
Ah but these boys can never retire to the quiet life. Mitch’s talents have caught the eye of crime lord Gant (Winstone) and he’s not the kind of chap to turn down, which, even while borrowing heavily from the likes of Carlito’s Way, is the strong element of the film and might have been pursued to better effect.
Instead, debut director William Monahan (who scripted The Departed and so knows his way around a decent thriller) gives way too much time to an awful love story and over-populates his film with half-drawn, clichéd characters, giving the overall impression he doesn’t know what he wants to do.
Farrell tries to rise above the mess and his scenes with Winstone are good but their efforts are wasted.

Megamind
DIRECTED BY: Tom McGrath
VOICES: Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill
CERT: PG
WISECRACKING animated heroes are two a penny these days, their creators clearly unaware that there is a crucial difference between wisecracking and actually being funny. Megamind is funny. It’s also a decent 3D movie, though you don’t need to spend the extra few bob to enjoy a fine looking film.
Borrowing just a tad (OK, maybe a lot) from Superman, this is the story of a little blue alien kid who’s packed off to Earth in a rocket when his own planet is banjaxed. He lands in a prison and is raised by the inmates ­ growing up to become the villain Megamind (Ferrell). Simultaneously, another alien refugee lands on his feet on the privileged side of Metro City. He is the golden boy, who will later become Metro Man (Pitt).
The two are sworn enemies and in their many clashes, it is of course Metro Man who triumphs. Then one day he doesn’t and Megamind finds himself king of the castle, only to discover that it’s kind of dull around the place without his old foe.
Like Superman, these guys have the press on their case,­ TV reporter Roxanne Ritchie (Fey) and her cameraman Hal (Hill) filling in for Lois Lane and the wide-eyed Jimmy Olsen, if Jimmy had ever gone on to become a superbeing called Titan.
This is the kind of animated movie made primarily with the grown-ups in mind. The kids will have a blast too but the writers are aiming higher and many of the sharper gags ­ and Ferrell’s unmistakable comic style ­ will probably go way over their heads.
Fine by me.