Synopsis: With an unmanned, half-mile-long freight train barreling toward a city, a veteran engineer (Denzel Washington) and a young conductor (Chris Pine) race against the clock to prevent a catastrophe.This film is a pretty good representation and exactly what I'd expect of a "popcorn film" with a lot of loud, fast, stylized action and a simple storyline. And I mean that in a good way. There's a lot of high tension and plenty of cliches along the way, but it gets from point A (uh oh, train loose!) to point B (somebody stop it!) in a really fun and entertaining fashion.
Denzel Washington and Chris Pine play real well with each other I thought. Denzel is his usual self but he brings out a nice job from Pine as well and they're both likable heroes to cheer for. There's a bit of character background stories going on, but it's really just to humanize the guys a bit and fill a little time between action sequences, and there are plenty of those with direction that puts you right on the runaway train with them.
This big choo-choo grabs your attention by the air brake and doesn't let go for a nice little 90 minute package of nail-biting, non-stop action and tension. Not a great film by any means, but does it's job and is well worth a watch.
7.5/10
