The Taking Of Pelham 123: Review

Take a classic 1975 thriller in which hi-jackers hold New York City to ransom by taking a subway train with passengers as hostages; give it a modern update; throw in two bankable stars and a director who has made a career of making hi-tech action thrillers, and what do you get? A dud.

Maybe that's unfair. It does have a few high points but Tony Scott's remake lacks any tension or suspense, because he thinks that to keep the attention of the audience, you have to hand the camera over to an over-excitable mouse who darts around the place and then get an MTV music video editor to cut the thing together. What you end up, is a flashy, somewhat nauseating film that gives you a migraine.

Denzel Washington, taking over from Walter Matthau, plays the everyman with a dark secret who becomes baddie John Travolta's pawn, as he is in the middle of the negotiations for the hostages and the 10 million dollars that Travolta wants for them. If there is anyone who can play nice guys, it's Washington, and he delivers his usual solid performance. Travolta, however, should have taken notes from original Pelham baddie Robert Shaw in how to play nasty. Shaw was cool, calm and quietly menacing. Travolta gives us another pantomime villain who screams, shouts and mugs at the camera, and it slightly upsets the balance of the film. John Turturro is the star of the film, underplaying everything and stealing the film right from under every one's noses. His is the most believable performance of the lot.

The other problem with the film is the gaping holes in the plot and some quite obviously stupid errors. For example, surely you would notice a laptop broadcasting on the floor of a train...especially when they are in darkness. Or are these the dumbest criminals in the world. Plus you should never lose your audience with a subplot about stocks and shares. Only a small percentage of the audience will have a clue what the techno babble about gold shares is about, so you lose the rest. Remember, that director Scott is aiming this film at an audience who only have very short attention spans, and then tries to be all clever. Make up your mind!

Scott last good movie, surprisingly, was a remake. Man Of Fire (with Washington as well) was a remake of a small Scott Glen thriller from the 80s. Proof that he can make decent remakes. This doesn't even get close to the original, and even makes the Matthau/Shaw film a far greater film.