Henry Saw: The Taking of Pelham 123

An okay thriller but nothing remarkable...


So Tony Scott's new film The Taking of Pelham 123 is actually a little better than I thought it would be. John Travolta is usually movie poison and Denzel Washington has not been a guarantee that a movie will be good for the last half dozen years (John Q, Deja Vu, Out of Time, The Manchurian Candidate, were all varying degrees of lame). As for Tony Scott, he's very hit or miss, and his last few films were big whiffs. Both Domino and Deja Vu were very weak (Domino being the worse of two) and his "extreme" style, which helped make Man On Fire a bizarre, awesome, fever-induced dream of an action movie only made Domino and Deja Vu headache inducing.

So I was a bit worried that Pelham 123 would be a bit of a disaster. It's not, in fact it is perfectly watchable, but it is also quite forgettable. It's a remake of a film from the 1970's that I haven't seen but from all accounts is a very different kind of movie. Where the 70's version is quite gritty and a clear case of good versus evil (Walter Matthieu starred as the hero and Robert Shaw was the hijacker) played out in grimy 70's New York, the updated 2000's verison adds moral ambiguity to the main characters, a subplot about the New York Mayor, stock market manipulation, and of course, Scott adds action, jump cuts, and a modern slickness to the whole proceeding.

The basic plot is similar in both films: Some armed gunman hijack a New York Subway car and demand a large sum of money (in the 1970's it was 1 Million dollars, now it's 10 Million). Someone back at the dispatch offices gets stuck talking to the head of the hijackers and having to negotiate with him. That's the basic hook of the film.

This means that the key moments in the film are when John Travolta and Denzel Washington talk to each other, find out what they can about one another, and try to relate to each other despite the wild circumstances of their "meeting". And these scenes are actually pretty strong. Travolta, who is playing it over-the-top, still manages to not be too annoying; and Denzel does yeoman work as the dispatcher put in a very hard position.

The rest of the film, however, is not nearly as compelling as these all too brief scenes between Travolta and Washington. The actual taking of the subway by Travolta and his men (including Luis Guzman for some reason) is not exciting in the least. Also dull are multiple shots of ransom money being ferreted around the city and everything having to do with James Gandolfini's Mayoral turn. Scott's hyper-kinetic, quick-cutting, ultra closeup, style is actually scaled back a bit here but Scott does nothing in real service of the story. He tells the story just fine but doesn't add to it in any way.

The leads are also flawed in their roles in some ways. As I said, Travolta manages to not be too annoying but he's also not exactly an all time great villain here. Travolta talks loudly, drops a lot of F-Bombs and seems to be having fun with the role but we are never totally with or against him. He never forces us see things his way or root against him...he's just kind of a stock caricature of the "crazy and fun" villain. Do I respect the film for letting him actually shoot some people and make good on threats? Yeah, I do, but the script lets Travolta down a bit (I can't believe I just wrote that). The only problem with Denzel Washington is that he's Denzel Washington and so I never really bought him as just an average Joe, which is the point of his role (Look! He poured coffee all over himself! He's just like me!) and he also doesn't sell the action beat his character gets towards the end of the film.

All in all this is a painless 100 minutes of movie watching. It's certainly a step up from Scott and Washington's last effort together (Deja Vu) and Travolta manages to not make me squirm at his terribleness...but there's nothing special here. It is a movie you forget about the minute the credits start rolling and you won't remember it until it pops up on Starz in 20 months. It's fine, it's just that there are better things to see right now, and this will play just fine on an airplane...

Grade: B-

Best Scene: When Travolta demands for Washington's character to get back on the phone.