Imagine an exciting, edge-of-your-seat drama with no villain, no drug wars or bloody murder scenes. Welcome Tony Scott’s Unstoppable! This adrenaline-filled story is based on a 2001 Pennsylvania true event involving a runaway train.

Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) is a hostler in a train yard where he moves trains from one track to another. Frank has done his time – and a darn good job at that – but he’ll soon punch his time card for the last time. He’s falling into that paradigm of bringing in new and cheaper help to replace the older, better paid employees.   

When greenhorn Will Colson (Chris Pine) shows up, Frank watches as he gets grilled and rebuffed by his peers. A little later that day, Frank and Will are assigned to the same train, and Frank has the unbelievable job of basically teaching Will how to replace him.

Will has a lot on his plate. He comes from a long line of relatives who have worked in the train yards, so he has a lot to live up to. He’s also separated from a wife and son because he couldn’t contain his temper. He tries to make nice with Frank in the beginning, but Frank remains matter of fact, giving short answers or ignoring Will’s questions.

When the two get assigned to the 1206 for a typical run through steel-mill territory, they never expect how the day will end up. After another co-worker disembarks from his train and fails to set the proper brake, his train becomes a runaway, barreling down the track and flying past Frank and Will so fast Frank knows there is immediate danger.

The basic plot of this movie involves the determined efforts of Frank and Will to stop the runaway train. Their heroic moments include jumping from car to car on top of the train, leaping from one platform to other moving trains, and performing additional dangerous stunts. During scenes of the fast-paced action are moments when Frank gives Will advice based on his own mistakes.

In a film requiring little gravitas to round out a character Washington (The Book of Eli) still endows Frank with an easy-to-see hardcore ethic that says a lot about why he’s disappointed with his company and disenchanted with his own personal situation. He brings far more realism to this film than his other recent train-centered movie The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.

Pine (Star Trek) never outshines Washington but holds his own in the film, especially when he does a few of his own stunts. Two hours of two men and a train could be boring, so there are other elements thrown in. Frank is in constant contact with Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson), the railyard supervisor. Several times she wants to make decisions on the side of the men’s safety but is derailed by company executives who want to draw little attention to the situation. One unfinished subplot at the beginning of the film deals with a group of kids who are at the railyard on a fieldtrip. While it’s alluded throughout the film that they may be in danger, their non-appearance at the end of the movie seems to be an overlooked continuity problem.

The tight script by Mark Bomback (Deception) serves the story well. And director Tony Scott (Déjà vu, Man on Fire) shares an ongoing history with Washington that certainly isn’t a bad thing here. Scott delivers a great action-packed film, one in which ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances are at the center of the story.

(Released by 20th Century Fox and rated “PG-13” for sequences of action and peril, and some language.)

Review also posted at www.reviewexpress.com.