The Taking of Pelham 123

Editorial

The original 1974 theatrical feature of the Taking Of Pelham, efficiently directed by Joseph Sargent, starred Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw as a transport cop and his businesslike master-criminal antagonist, talking throughout but only meeting in one scene. A 1998 TV remake stuck close to the film version. Now, Tony Scott and his regular action star Denzel Washington take another run at Godey's solidly constructed story... and come seriously off the rails. Brian Helgeland's script deletes anything from the original film that sticks in the mind and then burdens the main characters with overly complicated backstories.

Washington and Travolta are both ill-served by the suggestion that they can't project characters the way Matthau and Shaw did. Travolta's villain is all over the place, tapping into the stock market figures on his laptop, snarling, "The mayor can lick my bunghole", shooting hostages like a psycho and throwing tantrums that make him seem less dangerous than deranged. Washington is better, though he has to douse his natural charisma to play a put-upon, desk-sitting bureaucrat, and coasts through another flat hero role.

Scott's style, all staccato edits and blurry panic, pays off in a few minor scenes, though it's a pity a sub-plot traffic accident has more impact than the main event. The support get little to do, too: Luis Guzmán as a crooked train driver represents a tradition that versions of this story feature major Hispanic talent; John Turturro strides in as a hostage negotiator as if he's going to lift the film, but gets reduced to whispering tips into the hero's ear; and James Gandolfini blusters without consistency as the mayor.

Implausibility shouldn't be an issue in this sort of thriller, where audiences are willing to suspend disbelief in order to be strung along by suspense.

Kim Newman