Starring: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Luis Guzmán, John Turturro, James Gandolfini
In a nutshell: Denzel’s the Inside Man who gets to Face/Off with Travolta’s bad guy. Heh. See what we did there?
As money-making plots go, hijacking a subway train isn't the
most obvious. But, with John Godey's novel, and now two film
versions of The Taking of Pelham 123, there's clearly something to
it. Maybe it's the familiarity, the sense that, as passengers, we
could find ourselves as a bargaining chip as a bad guy tries to
extort a few million? Mind you, a New York setting works slightly
better than, say, the Northern Line. The Taking of East Finchley
123? Nah, doesn't quite have the right ring, does it?
The train in question is the 1:23 from Pelham Station. The bad guy
is Ryder (Travolta), a verbose crook with his eye on a $10m ransom
from the New York mayor's office. The person in-between is Walter
Garber (Washington), a dispatcher for the subway who's stumbled
into a new, inadvertent role as a hostage negotiator.
Garber is a down-on-his-luck, devoted family man and how devoted will be revealed during the course Tony Scott's typically OTT heist thriller, a moral ambiguity that adds a little depth to the general scenery-chewing, macho dialogue and transport-related action sequences.
The three big names - Travolta, Washington, Scott - tell you everything you need to know really. Travolta always gives good bad guy, Washington is a great actor who could do this sort of everyman in his sleep and Scott made Top Gun, so this is a walk in the park.
Whether this, ahem, vehicle is really the best showcase for their collective talents is debatable. For all the pizzazz Scott brings - including an utterly pointless but nonetheless exciting motorcycle chase through Manhattan, and some fantastically silly blurred motion sequences - this is a pretty straightforward thriller. It's no classic, but as crowd pleasers go, it's well made and well acted and will certainly keep the domestic viewer entertained.
Blu-Ray Extras: Entertaining commentaries from Tony Scott, Brian
Helgeland and producer Todd Black; No Time To Lose - (a typical
making of doc); The Third Rail - actually quite interesting
look at New York's subway and the problems of shooting
underground; From The Top Down - Stylizing Pelham featurette; and
Marketing Pelham featurette.
Win a Blu-ray player and a copy of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
