L'Attaque du métro 123

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 is Tony Scott's flashy and expensive remake of a stone-cold classic of 1970s cinema. The original had Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw as hero and villain respectively, while this remake sees Scott regular Denzel Washington and bad-guy-for-hire John Travolta stepping into those lofty shoes. And, unsurprisingly enough, this turns out to be a redundant remake that can't hope to better - or, indeed, even come close - to the quality of the original.

I'm not a hater of remakes per se. Occasionally certain films will be flawed or dated and the remake works better than the original; I found this with THE HILLS HAVE EYES. However, the original PELHAM is a great film and anyone who's seen it will end up just watching this version and criticising it by comparison. I'm sure if the original didn't exist I would have enjoyed the updated PELHAM a lot more, but as it stands it's a waste of time.

It's not all bad. Washington is the slick master of professionalism as always and never disappoints this viewer. Travolta gives another fun villainous turn, following on from FACE/OFF and BROKEN ARROW. Scott certainly knows how to make a fast-paced movie and this is a thriller that's never dull. But compared to the original, it's vapid, shallow, and way too superficial.

On the New York City Subway, four men armed men lead by Ryder (John Travolta) hijack a train car of 19 passengers from train Pelham 123 (so named because of its departure time and origin station). As the train car is stopped in the subway tunnel it wreaks havoc upon the rest of the subway system. Train Dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington) makes contact with Ryder who demands $10 million ransom in exchange for the passengers.

The Taking of Pelham 123 is the third adaptation of the novel of the same name by John Godey following the classic Joseph Sargent directed 1974 film and a mostly forgotten 1998 TV movie. The film was Denzel Washington's fourth collaboration with Tony Scott following their work on Crimson Tide, Man on Fire, and Déjà vu and as such was positioned as a blockbuster for the 2009 Summer movie season. Opening in third place behind holdovers of hit films Up and The Hangover, The Taking of Pelham 123 was seen as a "soft" opener for the $100 million project but eventually legged out to $150 million worldwide which while not great was far from terrible. The movie received mixed reviews with critics praising the technical aspects of the film as well as the performances, but also feeling that Tony Scott's frenetic direction didn't really mesh with the material and it was inferior to the 1974 original film. In the end this update of Pelham 123 does try to do something different, but it doesn't do so all that successfully.

Much like the original 1974 film, this version of Pelham 123 also serves as a time capsule of New York City substituting the 70s recession era atmosphere of the original for a New York City that has been redefined in the aftermath of 9/11 and of course the then recent financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. With Scott's direction having a few too many flourishes that his audience will be all too familiar with, sometimes it feels like New York City's identity isn't as well established as it could be and it feels like there's more focus on "how" it's being shot in place of "what's" being shot. In particular I felt as though the boarding sequence in the first act was overly truncated and I felt like the hijackers with the exception of Travolta's Ryder felt greatly diminished as characters with none of them allowed to leave much of an impression. Denzel Washington plays our substitute for Zachary Garber from the original film in Walter Garber who unlike the original transit cop character is a train dispatcher so he's out of his element and there's also an added subplot involving how he got moved from a higher level position down to dispatch. In principal I like the idea of where they take the Garber character but the execution is where I feel it stumbles because they try to make Ryder and Garber parallels of each other in a "we're not so different, you and me" that leads to a very overwrought standoff moment serving as the climax that I just feel doesn't work. This incarnation of the film takes itself much more seriously, and while there are shades of humor such as with James Gandolfini's performance as the mayor of New York or the occasional exchanges among the passengers the movie feels like it has excised a good amount of the original film's humor which was a key appeal of its identity including its stinger ending involving a sneeze.

The Taking of Pelham 123 is perfectly serviceable as a time killer and Travolta and Denzel do solid work but I think Tony Scott's direction isn't all that conducive to what is mostly a chamber piece and it feels like Scott has tried to "energize" his direction to compensate for the contained nature of the story. If you want to see a Tony Scott train movie that works with his style instead of against it I'd recommend 2010's Unstoppable because the story of a runaway train meshed better with Scott's directorial style.

This urban crime drama is a diverting entry with plenty of action, tense moments and running dialogue to sustain interest for the duration of the film. The main plot is a hostage situation and a demand for an outrageous sum of money. Denzel Washington and John Travolta spar throughout the picture and play off each other very well. Denzel, as always, is great and Travolta makes a good heavy although some of his one-liners fall flat as he negotiates with Washington. There are several interesting scenes of the trains, subway stations, tunnels, track beds and elevated sequences where the action takes place. Some of the street-level scenes, involving taxi and police car stunts don't seem to be necessary. Cast and camera work are very nice.

"Taking of Pelham 123" was the movie that had it all. A great director in Tony Scott, screenwriter in Brian Helgeland (Man on Fire, LA Confidential), and leading men in Denzel Washington and John Travolta each doing what they do best. To its credit, Washington and Travolta keep it afloat. This is the kind of movie both can do in their sleep and watching them go one on one with each other is the film's main bright spot. Were also in for a pretty exciting ride as Tony Scott swings his camera around New York city streets and underground subway tunnels. Though this remake of the 1974 film starring Walter Mathau and Robert Shaw proves to be a little less than the sum of its parts.

Washington plays Walter Garber, the chief detective for the MTA currently involved in some controversy over a bribe he may or may not have taken. While that's being worked out, he's been reassigned to desk duty as dispatcher in the subway command center. Just today will be a day unlike any other as armed men hijack a New York City subway 6 train and hold all of its passengers hostage. The leader of the hi-jackers wishes to be called Ryder (John Travolta), and tells Walter that he wants 10 million dollars within an hour or he will start executing hostages. The cops (led by John Turturro) are brought in but Walter remains as the lead negotiator at Ryder's request.

Short on actual plot, I was expecting more of a character driven movie and early on it appears to go in that direction. There is a great scene where Ryder puts Walter on trial for the bribe and it leads you to think that these two are going to butt heads in dialogue-driven scenes all day long, exposing each other for who they really are. Just the battle of wits ends there, which is unfortunate cause the movie really crackles whenever they talk to each other. Travolta, sporting a menacing goatee and tattoo, is at his over-the-top, f-bomb-dropping, lunatic best and Washington is his level-headed, average-guy adversary.

The rest is all action. Car crashes and shoot-outs take place, the car crashes coming within a sloppy scene where the police travel by motorcade to deliver the money and the shoot-out starting from a rat crawling up a guy's leg of all things. Both feature no important characters and situations that are manipulated. The finale comes before you know it, a chase through the streets of NY that's more exciting because it makes more sense. And Tony Scott, despite using clichés like counting down the clock and going into slow-motion, keeps the movie gritty and fast-paced. As for the rest of the cast, James Gandolfini, playing a New York Mayor, is good comic relief, getting jokes about Giuliani, subways, and the Yankees but Turturro and Luis Guzman, playing a disgruntled MTA employee working with Ryder, don't get much to do.

"Pelham" works pretty well as a thriller because the Tony Scott-Denzel Washington teaming (this is their fourth go-around) always seems to do so and adding Travolta, always fun as a villain, is another nice touch. Just it doesn't always leave you engaged in what's happening, whether because the plot or the action lacks humanity. Still it's held together by good acting and solid direction and for that alone it's worth a ride.

It started like any ordinary day; that's likely what N.Y.C. subway dispatcher Walter Garber, an employee of questionable character, was thinking when he got up and went to work in the morning. Little did he know that he'd become the confidant and "stand-in" hostage negotiator for a prickly criminal mastermind who takes over the Pelham subway train and demands money in exchange for the lives of its passengers. Hearing the names Washington, Travolta, and Scott creates a lot of anticipation, but unfortunately what wants to be a slick combination of suspense thriller and character study instead results in a ponderous film with a weak setup, predictable plot twists, shallow characters, and little tension. It's easy to watch with actors of Washington and Travolta's caliber at work, but Scott's direction is pretentious and throws out some obligatory action scenes that seem to exist for the sole purpose of padding the time on the way to an expected climax. The leads do what they can with the strained material but really deserve better. **