The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

One of my all time favorite movies was this movie back in the theatrical version in 1974. This TV version was awful. It was a perfect example of a movie that did not need to be remade. I could not wait for it to end as I was bored silly. There was absolutely no chemistry between the characters. I hope this movie gets "shelved" forever.

I don't know why Hollywood feels the need to re-do classic movies. Can they not come up with original storylines anymore? This tv movie was lacking in so many areas. The actors had no chemistry, the dialog was banal, and the action seemed contrived. Don't waste your time on this one. Rent or better yet, buy the original starring Walter Matthau.

Keeping up with the times this 1998 remake of The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three had to change certain things and deliberately changed others. One indisputable fact was that in 1998 the New York City Transit Police had ceased being a separate entity and was now just part of the NYPD. Hence Walter Matthau's character as a Transit Cop would not have existed any longer. For this version Edward James Olmos is not only a regular NYPD detective, but he's a hostage negotiator specialist.

The change out the Transit Police was necessary, but part of what made the first version work so well was Walter Matthau being placed in a situation he wouldn't normally be dealing with. In that version in fact he's shepherding a bunch of Japanese railroad people around the Transit Authority Command Center when the hijacking occurs.

Instead of Jerry Stiller as his partner, Olmos is paired with Lorraine Bracco, certainly women by that time were doing more than administrative work in the NYPD. The mysterious head of the four hijackers is Vincent Donofrio on the other side of the law. We don't know who he is, but he certainly didn't have the air of mystery that soldier of fortune Robert Shaw did in the Seventies. In fact we never really find out anything about Donofrio.

The plot follows pretty much the story in the original version. Since it was shot in Toronto, the streets of New York where a lot of the excitement above ground as the City tries to meet the hijackers deadline is missing from this version.

Seeing Donofrio and Olmos makes me wish for Matthau and Shaw. Maybe the new version that will have Denzel Washington and John Travolta as antagonists will be better.

What a tedious load of drivel this is. It tries for "suspense", instead it achieves "stilted" and "boring". Almost as if the director was saying "OK, guys, freeze for five more seconds" in almost every scene.

Walter Matthau was great in the original. I saw him as a serious actor, in the original of this one and in "Kill Charlie Varrick" long before today's kids saw him as a "Grumpy Old Man" actor. And he really makes the original movie shine. But I suspect that even he, had he been somehow edited into THIS load of rubbish, could not have saved it.

Although it's been a while since I watched this, I seem to recall enjoying it more than the 4.+ rating it has here. However, I also remember thinking "why?" Aside from some minor updates (the original's $1,000,000 ransom isn't much in 1998; more racial & gender diversity among the main players; the expunging of the Mayor character entirely which served only as comic relief in the original) the movie stuck so closely to the original that I had to wonder "why?" Why remake a great thriller unless you have something new to add? (Cape Fear for instance) While this certainly wasn't a waste of my time, and was in fact an entertaining evening of television, if given the choice, just watch the original. My only guess as to why this was made as it was, is because there are people who refuse to watch anything "old" and thus would rather watch a "new" version with current actors.