Rob Lowe investigates train wrecks. He has a wife, named something (I'll say Angie), a daughter from a previous marriage, played by the Alien Fetus, herself, Mena Suvari, and a stepson named Chance. Chance's dad (and Angie's ex-husband) is a cop named Mac. Oh, and Mena has a boyfriend named Lenny or something, and they just recently had sex for the first time. (This isn't actually revealed in the movie, but it's strongly hinted at.) Ok, so some idiot guy who works for some chameical company decides it would be a good idea to put an old Soviet nuclear bomb on the train. I'm not sure why, but he does. Well, wouldn't you know, something on the train breaks. Meanwhile, Rob and Chance are out rock climbing for a foreshadowing, er, bonding experience, where Rob shows Chance how to tie a rope with one hand. Well, Rob finds out about the runaway train and has a guy with a helicoptor fly him to another freight engine. His plan is to have the engine meet up with the runaway, hook up, and hit the breaks. Sounds like a decent plan, right? Well, this all works out well, except the little hookup thingy breaks, so that solution's shot. At least Rob is on the runaway, though. At about this time, he learns that there may be a nuke on board, and, being the hero of the film, he has to go back and check. Well, it turns out they were right.
So, they kill some time trying to find a solution to this problem and running through some mounds of sand, trying to slow down, and Rob suggests cutting off the electronics. That would engage the fail safe breaks (which actually would have engaged a while ago when the break line broke, but it's a movie, so I'll give them a little leeway). Of course, he could have suggested this before the whole ordeal started. That way, no one would have died. Oh yeah, someone died somewhere in there. Anyway, they try that, and it seems to work, and they gradually slow down. End of movie, right? Well, no. You see, for some reason, the guy in the freight engine decided to disobey direct orders to back off, and he comes speeding along the track. I guess they felt that 75 minutes (not including commercials) was too short for a TV movie, because the freight engine rams the back of the runaway, killing another guy or two. Well, the runaway is now going about 2 mph, but it's on top of a mountain and now the breaks are shot, making the movie longer than necessary, but it'll all end shortly. Right.
At this point, the president and the military are involved, and Rob's family is trying to evacuate Denver. There's also a uselsess subplot involving a guy who looks a lot like Carter on Spin City. Now, there are several ways to stop this train. They have plenty of time. They could deploy an engine or two ahead of the runaway, have them meet up and gradually slow down. They could put up a huge mountain of sand to try to stop it. They could even derail it when it's going 2 mph, which would cause negligable damage. Instead, they opt to let it pick up a bunch of speed and derail it right by Denver. This is also a foreign bomb, so they don't know how it will react.
Well, everyone's trying to leave Denver, and there's an overabundence in traffic, and it's all hectic. Mac is in his police helicoptor looking for "his family" and Angie and Chance are trying to find Mena and Lenny. Mena and Lenny, it turns out, crashed the Jeep (it wasn't their fault) and had to walk. Lenny broke his leg, though. Nevertheless, they all unite and head out of Denver, but they're almost out of gas. They stop at a gas station which will only take cash and is charging $20 per gallon. The gas station, it turns out, is run by a "sergeant" for the Colorado Freedom Militia or something. Mac tells them they need gas, and they aren't about to pay $20 a gallon, and that their price gauging is bad, etc., but the "sergeant" isn't hearing it. In fact, he decides to arrest Mac, and there's a big shootout. You'd think they'd know better than to have a shootout in a gas station surrounded by hundreds of panicked people, but I guess these things happen.
At about this time, the train derails, and Rob has to go through the wreckage to find the bomb and hook it up to a crane. There's chemicals all around the bomb. Chemicals that have a volitile reaction to water. If they leak and water contacts them, KABOOM! So, Rob finds the bomb, but it's impossible to remove it, so they'll need someone to disarm it there. Yes, I did say disarm it. They were carrying around a live nuclear warhead. You'd think... never mind. Anyway, there's nothing more for Rob to do, since he can't disarm bombs, and they have someone who can. So, Rob goes up in the news chopper to find his family. He calls them on the cell phone, and they tell him where to meet, and that they stole a truck from the militia. There's a big happy reunion, and the movie ends.
Actually, the movie doesn't end. Instead, it keeps on going, and the chemicals around the bomb start to leak. The military guy calls off the fire-fighting helicoptors, but one of them doesn't get the message, and it dumps water all over the place. Guess what happens. There's a series of big explosions (but no mushroom cloud) and a huge bright blast that no one's supposed to look at. At this point, we're all hoping it would kill everyone, but no such luck. The areas surrounding Denver have set up camps for the survivors, so Rob and his family (and Mac and Lenny) head in that direction. There's no way they can make it on foot, so Mac runs off to find transportation. He returns with a motorcycle. He only really cares about Chance and Angie. Everyone else can go to hell, for all he cares. Well, he agrees to take Chance and Mena, and they drive off. Meanwhile, Lenny has a massive head wound, and he needs medical help. Angie and Lenny stop a loaded bus and get on. Rob looks around for something to drive, and, as luck would have it, a guy in a car just happened to die right then and there.
They all reunite at the camp. Actually, they don't. Instead, Mac crashes the motorcycle and breaks his back. Chance and Mena try to save him, and Rob shows up for no apparant reason. Chance is hanging from a suspended ladder, trying to save his dad, and Rob gets some wire to pull him back up. Chance does the one hand knot thing from the beginning, and they use a sort of pulley system to pull Chance up. Once Chance is safe, the ladder breaks and kills Mac, which is nice since no one liked him anyway, and he was a real jerk.
So, Rob, Mena, and Chance meet up with Angie and Lenny at the camp, and they help everyone they can, and the movie actually ends with them raising a barn.
This movie could have ended after 75 minutes. 75 minutes for a TV movie isn't bad. When you throw in commercials, you've got at least a 90 minute spot there. The total time of this movie was 168 minutes. That's not including commercials.
Don't ever rent this.
Ever.