Veteran actor and two-time Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington sports an extremely close shave for his role as Frank Barnes in his upcoming thriller Unstoppable, a word that quite accurately describes Washington’s nearly four-decade career and universal appeal.

This is Washington’s second film this year, his first being The Book of Eli, which garnered moderate commercial success and mixed reviews. At first glance, this film may seem somewhat similar to 2009′s The Taking of Pelham 123. Instead of working within the framework of a remake or a film adaptation of a novel, Unstoppable is a freight-train adventure is loosely based on actual events which occurred in Ohio.

In 2001, an unmanned freight train carrying thousands of gallons of hazardous materials that are harmful when ingested, inhaled, or touched left a train station and reached speeds of 47 mph. Washington’s character is based on true-life CSX Transportation worker, Jon Hosfield.

The film co-stars Chris Pine, who plays a green young railway worker undergoing training who ends up being asked to help in the attempt to stop what is essentially a fast-moving, ticking time bomb. His character is based on real life locomotive engineer Jesse Knowlton. The cast is rounded out by the lovely Rosario Dawson. Here’s an exclusive clip of the film, featuring Washington and Pine.

It’s fairly obvious this film won’t suffer from a lack of talent but can it build suspense? We’ve seen films with similar premises such as Speed and Money Train, so the trick is to do something original and groundbreaking here. Whether the film’s protagonists can get to the train in time or not will, of course, remain to be seen. However, in the official clip below, your adrenaline has to get pumping when Pine remarks that he and Washington will “run this b*tch down.”

Hopefully, we’re in for a literal thrill ride here. Unstoppable is set to hit theaters November 12.

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