Plot: A big freight train with toxic chemicals is set to derail in a Pennsylvania town unless railroad veteran Frank (Denzel Washington) and railroad rookie Will (Chris Pine) can stop it.
Review: The video of the trains, bridges, rails, pick-up trucks were colorful and great. Director Tony Scott has a great eye for colorful and shiny machinery, however, some of the dialog was awful, and attention to detail sucked. All the dialog from the TV reporters, the daughters, railroad coworkers was bad bordering on stupid.
Happily the dialog between Frank and Will was good. They did a nice job of integrating the back-story with the plot. Denzel's acting was serviceable -- not great but competent and entertaining. Chris Pine was a more engaging. Rosario Dawson, as railyard master Connie, stole the show -- lots of good lines and reaction shots.
In summary, the main train story was action-packed and entertaining. The dialog between the main characters was good enough. The rest of the actors and story was embarrassingly dumb.
Cast: Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson
Directed by: Tony Scott
Rating: 2.0 stars
More: This is the first movie (that I have seen) with omniscient TV reporters. Rather than have a character or narrator explain the plot twists , a series of local Fox 43 News reporters do it. It informs the audience, but it was in no way realistic. I can forgive a little of this, as a story-telling device, but it got too distracting.
Even More: I was distracted by the endless "product placement" of the Rupert Murdock-owned Fox TV Network in this Rupert Murdock-owned Twentieth Century Fox movie.
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