UNSTOPPABLE is a movie about whether Denzel Washington and James Tiberius Kirk can stop a seemingly unstoppable train (spoiler: they can, but it’s tricky. Truthful title: ULTIMATELY STOPPABLE). I’ve reviewed it here for Film4, but what follows is me sharing my favourite quotations from the press notes.
For anyone not familiar with press notes, they’re a document where the people behind the film try to subtly introduce the key things they would like critics to say about the film into the unwary critic’s subconscious. It works surprisingly often. One day when I’m less lazy, I will do a compare and contrast between press notes and concepts that it’s hard to otherwise believe would have turned up in so many reviews.
So, my favourite quotes from the press notes for Tony Scott’s Unstoppable and what if anything I learned from them:
1. ‘Inspired by actual events’
Audiences have become desensitised to studios slapping ‘true’ on everything from The Toolbox Murders to Escape To Victory. Actual on the other hand… it’s just so *actual*. ‘Actual’ is the new ‘true’.
2. ‘Faster is not always safer’
Unstoppable: brought to you by the Road Safety Guild Of America.
3. ‘Tony Scott is a master of motion picture events’
But not films.
4. Tony Scott says: “It’s speed-on-speed.”
Pop-quiz hotshot: did somebody fuck up and not cap up Speed? I mean, he is referring to the Keanu classic right? The alternative is that he means “it’s fastness-on-drugs.”
5. Tony Scott says: “This was the most challenging and brilliant adventure I’ve ever encountered because I had to tell a character story inside something going very, very fast.”
The speed at which a body is in motion is inversely proportionate to the amount of character and story that they have. At high speed, character just can’t keep up. This is physics.
6. “They’re so old school, they’re new school.” – Writer Mark Bomback on trains.
Mark was thrilled to go to big school and discover they have a choo-choo set there too.
7. ‘Denzel Washington suggested Tony Scott cast the Star Trek headliner, and Scott agreed, especially after catching Chris Pine’s acclaimed work in the play Farragut North.’
It was the theatre work that swung it. Pine is a real Actor. Be sure to mention his Acting. Do not focus on the Captain Kirk thing.
8. Chris Pine on Denzel Washington – “He’s complicated in all the best ways.”
He’s a pain in the arse?
9. Rosario Dawson on her character – “She is confident and assertive without being arrogant or bitchy which is an absolute necessity if you want to be successful in a traditionally male role.”
On men, bitchy and arrogant comes off as strong and commanding, but woe betide the person with a vagina who tries to make that stroppy shit work for them.
10. ‘All three lead actors admit that the unstoppable train – the 777 – steals every scene.’
Out-acted by a train, eh?
11. ‘”The 777 is the real star of the movie,” says Washington with characteristic nonchalance. “It’s the shark in Jaws.” ‘
Denzel so modest.
12. ‘”We call [the train] The Beast Triple-7,” says Tony Scott. “It has a voice. It’s like the shark in Jaws.”
There is a certain comparison to be made in reviews of Unstoppable that Tony Scott would be very happy to read.
Now click here to read the review this press release is angling for.
