On Tony Scott...

UPDATE: Tony Scott is currently reported to not have had inoperable brain cancer.

When something as horrible as death occurs close to the cultural mindset, my first fear is that people will pollute the air with gross comedic jabs. That's generally what I expected with the news of Tony Scott's reported suicide this morning, since Scott is far from what you'd claim to be a master filmmaker. In past years I have written him off as one to avoid, since both "Unstoppable" and "The Taking of Pelham 123" left me not just cold, but reeling from a battered headache. Those films are a distinguished part of what made his name as a director, which is a certain stylistic sensibility that pushed action to full-throttle, no matter how the audience liked it.

It does me good to see people focusing on the good in Tony Scott's career, with "Crimson Tide", "Top Gun", and "True Romance" coming to the front of the conversations in his favor. Scott had 16 features to his name at the time of his death, which isn't so much of an oppressive thing for the fact that there is an apparent explanation for it. Scott had been supposedly diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, and it appears he decided to do something about it. Not as some condoning of his methods, but jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles is one hell of a way to go. In death as in life, Scott pushed things to the edge, for better or worst.

Film Review: Unstoppable

They say that if you've seen one Tony Scott film, you've seen them all, and I have now seen one Tony Scott film, which is apparently the best. The sad thing is, if I was going to see a new film next weekend, this would've been the film I chose. At least I saw it in advance, so I can tell you to avoid this one. Unstoppable is a film about a runaway train going at high speeds into a populated area, and the two train conductors who go after it to try and stop it. It's said very early on that this is based on a true story, which I highly doubt because I can't believe that events would occur this conveniently or that business executives would be as dumb as they are here.

You can expect a rather shortened film review, because there really isn't that much to say. The first forty to fifty minutes is spent establishing characters and the story, and it fails on that part. We're somehow supposed to believe that Will Coleson (Chris Pine) and Frank Burns (Denzel Washington) have only been working for a day, but have fostered some emotional connection. We don't, because they haven't. Pine and Washington are given one note characters, and turn out two note performances. Nothing that will get you to especially care about these characters too much, but they add a splice of charisma in occasionally.

About five minutes into the film, you realize that the ultimate villain of this film is a train. It's not the sort of unbiased aggression the trailer tried to sell it as. It's a train, with no actually threatening persona attached to it. The film doesn't really pick up speed until an hour in, and even then, we don't quite get the thrills we should. We know the good guys are going to save the day, and that's that. This actually felt a lot like some cheap Michael Bay film. Not like Transformers 2 where the action will sustain you throughout the runtime. The type where you don't quite feel the necessary momentum, and yet it is always loud and headache inducing, which is the feeling I received while watching this train wreck (No pun intended). That might just be the vibe emanating from Kevin Dunn's stupid performance. The cinematography is observational rather than intimate, and it's of a rather poor quality. The picture attached to this review is at the highest resolution it's ever going to be at. That is truly pathetic. All I know is that it took entirely to long to get to the point where things start blowing up, and people start gripping their seats. It's ultimately not worthy of your time, so just skip it.

C+