History Film / Unstoppable

'''Galvin:''' What...? What in the hell was 'that'?!\\

* SacrificialLamb: [[spoiler:Judd]]; also known as the [[spoiler:only person]] to die in the whole movie.

-->'''Connie:''' OH MY GOD! GALVIN, YOU ASSHOLE!!!

* FirstDayFromHell: The events of the film occur during Will's first day as a train conductor.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Downplayed with Galvin. He isn't so much corrupt as he is somewhat incompetent and more concerned with the company's financial standing than the actual threat the train poses. When Connie suggests derailing the train before it hits a populated area, he shoots down the plan on the spot because they've made almost no other attempts to stop it and it would be a massive expense. He refuses to keep her in the loop and cooks up his own plan to airlift someone onto the train while a second engine tries to slow it from the front. When that fails, he goes with Connie's derailer plan, only now it'll happen in a town and be much more destructive. When Frank and Will suggest a much less destructive plan that would risk their lives, he vetoes it and threatens to fire them. [[spoiler:He gets his comeuppance when Frank and Will metaphorically give him the finger and refuse to listen to him, causing everyone else on the ground to follow suit and effectively lock him out of the situation. It's implied that he got fired after the whole mess.]]

** Gilleece is as much of a jerk as Dewey, but does correctly point out some of his mistakes, such as not activating the air brakes.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Though Galvin makes a lot of mistakes down the line, his refusal of Connie's derailment plan is perfectly reasonable. Defaulting to causing a disaster, even in open county, is a bit of an overreaction when there hasn't been a single attempt to stop the train safely. Connie's playing it safe, in a sense, because it was the only uninhabited region to safely derail the train.

** Dewey is an unpleasant, abrasive worker whose incompetence triggers the disaster in the first place, and he makes it worse by withholding the fact that the train was at full power. [[spoiler: He gets fired as well and ends up working at the fast food industry]].

** Dewey is an unpleasant, abrasive worker whose incompetence triggers the disaster in the first place, and he makes it worse by withholding the fact that the train was at full power. He gets fired as well and ends up working at the fast food industry.

* HateSink: Galvin is a {{Jerkass}} corporate executive who thinks in terms of preventing a PR disaster and monetary loss to the company first and saving lives second and refuses to listen to other people. His own ideas to try to stop the train are a barrage of EpicFail moments that culminate with [[spoiler:Judd Stewart's death]] and from that point on everybody else in the cast decide to stop listening to him as they do whatever they can to stop the train. [[spoiler:The [[WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue closing montage]] mentions that he was fired for his incompetence.]]

* VillainProtagonist: The runaway train is the main threat and the central focus of the film, and is almost treated like the main character.

* CarsWithoutTiresAreTrains: One of the various attempts at stopping 777 involves Dewey and Gileece racing alongside it on a parallel track in a Ford F-150 with a draisine rig and trying to jump aboard.

%%* CoolOldGuy: Frank.

%%* TheEveryman: Frank and Will.

%%* FirstDayFromHell: Will.

%%* HateSink: Galvin.

* HighConcept: A RunawayTrain is loaded with dangerous chemicals.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: In the actual CSX 8888 incident, it was the railway company who ordered the eventually successful attempt to stop the train, rather than the attempt being done "against orders" by the train crew. The company has also never released the name of the engineer portrayed as Dewey.

** Dewey first fails to hook up the train's air brakes before moving it, then he jumps out of the cab with the train still moving in order to switch the tracks. [[WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue The end]] reveals that he was fired for this, and is now working fast food.
** When the train suddenly speeds up, instead of thinking to jump onto the rear staircase of the locomotive, Dewey tries to outrun the rapidly accelerating train to get to the front staircase.

** Galvin's strategy of attempting to slow 777 by having another locomotive bash it from the front while ''simultaneously'' trying to land marine Ryan Scott on it. Predictably, the poor bastard is flung like a rag doll the second the two diesels hit each other, at the worst possible moment. It would have made much more sense to simply put Ryan on the rescue locomotive and have it couple to the front.

* NoRespectGuy: Averted in the film, but the real life people were given T-shirts and gift vouchers.

* OhCrap: The look on Connie's face when Dewey informs him the throttle on 777 was set to notch 8 (full throttle) just before he lost it. The look on the engineer's face on the schoolkids' train just screams this, when he ''sees 777 round a curve in front of him''.

* PoliceAreUseless: Subverted and played straight. The police clear the crossings before 777 approaches, and give Ned an escort to chase down the train. However, their attempt to put a Marine on the train fails, and while they attempt to shoot a safety switch to cut off 777's fuel supply, they stop when they realize that it's too close to the actual tank. The police clear out an entire town so that the portable derailer can be used, but the derailer fails. A police car also rolls over.

** Only God knows what Galvin was thinking, and saying to himself. Whatever it is, he managed to keep his ugliest thoughts in his head as the movie progressed.

-->'''Oscar Galvin:''' I am not jeopardizing more personnel and more property just because some engineer wants to play *hero*! End of discussion! That train is our property. It's our decision! Now you stop your pursuit or I will fire you!

* EverybodyLives: Almost. Only one person in the movie dies: [[spoiler:Judd, when his engine blows up after failing to slow down Triple 7]].

* BaldOfAwesome: Frank.
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Nicole is this for Frank.
* TheCavalry: The role Ned ends up fulfilling.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The trailers hype the connection to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSX_8888_incident a 2001 runaway train]]; the actual runaway train went through northwest Ohio, and there were no casualties. And the actual train went nowhere near 70 mph, more like 45 at the most. Two of the film's failed attempts to stop it were also tried in real life (using derailers, and shooting the exterior stop button). The ultimate solution was similar, albeit not effected so dramatically close to a populated area. The train that did the job was driven by an engineer with 31 years' experience (28 in the film) and a conductor with a year's worth (in the movie, it's his first day). The guy who actually got in and stopped it [[spoiler:was not the young conductor, and he]] only had to catch up with a train slowed down (by the coupled engine) to 11 MPH. So yeah, real life ignores the RuleOfDrama repeatedly.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: what happened to Oscar Galvin? we don't know because his fate isn't mentioned in the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: it's implied he was fired his poor handling of the incident.