The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 [2009]
Director: Tony Scott
Actor: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, John Turturro, James Gandolfini, Luis Guzmán
Tony Scott, famed director Ridley Scott’s younger brother, has developed a style of direction and editing that’s never going to appeal to the masses. Considering how the early 80s are often harkened back to as an example of when directors took time to set the mood of a film and the general pace of the film was a lot slower than most of what is produced today. As fate would have it Ridley was the master of this as shown by such iconic examples as Alien and Blade Runner. Perhaps it is Ridley’s prowess in this field that made the younger Tony choose the polar opposite style, laced with a high pace and an epileptic editing that reminds me of all that is wrong with this MTV generation. But that’s not to say that it doesn’t work very well for certain films.
The most recent example of this style of directing and editing is showcased in The Taking of Pelham 123 (or simply, Pelham), the remake of the 1974 classic starring Walter Matthau. This time it pitts Denzel Washington as Walter Garber (as opposed to 1974’s Zachary Garber played by Walter Matthau) against John Travolta as Ryder (as opposed to Robert Shaw who played Mr. Blue whose real name was Ryder. Incidentally, the 1974 Pelham is also the inspiration for the colour-coded nicknames in Tarantino’s Resevoir Dogs.) Ryder has hijacked a subway cart full of people in a strategic tunnel somewhere underneath Midtown Manhattan and demands 10 million dollars for their safe release. He has 19 hostages and will kill one each minute they exceed the one hour deadline. That starts a long dialogue between Ryder and Garber as Ryder seems to trust him more than the NYPD hostage negotiator (Torturro). That dialogue is surprisingly more intensive and involved than in the 1974 version and in the era of fast cuts, short attention spans and Michael Bay films that’s pretty unique for a remake.
Denzel is solid, as is Gusman and Torturro. Travolta plays a great unstable, strong sociopath, but he had a hard time convincing me of Ryder’s backstory as a powerful, shrewd and shady stockbroker. He did some parts nicely, but that was probably more a clever screenplay than the spin he gave to it, like doin the math of ten million dollars divided by 19 hostages, which he does correctly to the cent. It happened before his revelation as a talented broker so it gave you some early insight into his intellect. He’s wilder than the awesome, coiled spring of tightly packed violence he played (well) in Broken Arrow, but it’s similar. The person that actually pleasantly suprised me was James Gandolfini as the mayor of NYC who has to come up with the money while closing in on his retirement from public office and coming under heavy assault in the media for cheating on his wife and the resulting, rather public divorce. It was good to see him back on the big screen, given his talent, and also shrug off the Soprano type-cast a little bit.
All in all a very enjoyable movie if you don’t expect a remake that’s very loyal to the atmosphere of the original. Oh, and don’t think that the timeline is going to be very acurrate either. Seriously, getting from midtown to Coney in seven minutes?
