DVDFile

Director Tony Scott has always been treated as sort of the hyperactive, less disciplined sibling to big brother and fellow filmmaker Ridley Scott. While Ridley is off making meticulous classics like Alien and Blade Runner and award-winners like Gladiator and Thelma and Louise, Tony prefers to crank out more pedestrian if thoroughly entertaining popcorn flicks like Top Gun, True Romance, Crimson Tide and Days of Thunder. While he’s had his share of box-office hits, Tony also tends to veer off the tracks more often than not, especially with his penchant for over-the-top visuals and a headache-inducing kinetic editing style that often pounds this particular viewer into submission. His less successful efforts — films like Beverly Hills Cop II, Revenge, The Last Boy Scout and The Fan — often fail because he sacrifices character and story for the sake of slick visuals and fast-paced editing. But sometimes the younger Scott’s directorial instincts will perfectly mesh with a solid script that connects with audiences … and lately his frequent collaborations with actor Denzel Washington (Man on Fire, Déjà Vu) have yielded solid results.

So despite my distaste for yet another remake of a Hollywood classic, I vowed to keep an open mind for Scott’s latest, The Taking of Pelham 123, an updated retelling of the original film starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. Not only was Scott reteaming with his good-luck charm, Denzel Washington, but he also had the added benefits here of John Travolta onboard and a decent screenplay update courtesy of Oscar winner Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential). The resulting film goes well beyond the typical remake given the new plot mechanics Helgeland grafts onto it and the added benefits of modern technology. (In the original film the technological advances pretty much end with the glorified CB radio the two leads use to communicate — but here we get a NASA-like command center used to track all the trains in the New York MTA subway system in real time; the added benefits of cell phones and wireless laptop computers; and even street surveillance cameras which are used to monitor the comings and goings of all the characters.) In many ways, this new Taking of Pelham 123 reminded me of Tony Scott’s Enemy of the State, which was sort of an unofficial sequel/remake of Francis Ford Coppola’s great The Conversation, with Gene Hackman playing a role very similar to his Harry Caul surveillance expert in the 1974 classic.

In this 2009 reboot, the film wastes no time getting to the premise as four armed men board and take over a New York MTA subway train departing from Pelham Bay Park Station at 1:23 p.m. — hence “Pelham 123.” The group’s leader, an ex-con who later identifies himself simply as Ryder (John Travolta), has devised a plan to unhook one of the cars from the subway train and stop it within one of the more remote underground tunnels, holding it and all its passengers hostage until the City of New York agrees to pay him $10 million in ransom. If the money isn’t delivered to him within an hour, he will kill a hostage … and continue doing so until his demands are met. To prove that he’s serious, he shoots the driver of the engine car he’s commandeered. MTA dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington) becomes the unwilling middle-man who relays all of Ryder’s demands back to his superiors and, ultimately, New York City officials. Garber seems to know more than the typical dispatcher, however, and it is soon revealed that he was once a high-ranking official in the MTA but he is currently under investigation for taking a bribe while negotiating a new subway car purchase contract. Ryder sees this as an opportunity to level the playing field, so-to-speak, as both men seem to be smart but flawed individuals who have been somehow tarnished by the system. As such, they develop a quick bond which New York City police hostage negotiator Lieutenant Camonetti (John Turturro) uses as leverage against Ryder.

Meanwhile, the mayor of New York City (James Gandolfini) is apprised of the hostage situation and agrees to have the $10 million withdrawn from the Federal Reserve and transported to Ryder and his cohorts. But it’s going to be difficult to get it there in less than an hour. It’s now up to Garber to buy some time to make sure the money gets to Ryder before he callously kills another one of the hostages. But as the two continue their time-passing conversations, each learns a bit more about the other. Ryder has obviously planned this little scheme for some time and he’s even convinced a disgruntled former MTA employee named Phil Ramos (Luis Guzman), who Garber recognizes on a live streaming video feed, to go along with him and drive the subway car. But it takes a few more revealing comments made by Ryder and the fact that he knew $10 million was the maximum amount of money he could negotiate for under current New York City law that finally lead the mayor and other city officials to figure out his real motive for hijacking the subway train. This being a Tony Scott film, the requisite big action chase sequence ensues in the third act, but it’s thankfully kept to a minimum and actually fairly well-staged and integral to the plot. Unlike the 1974 original, the two central protagonists also have a face-to-face meeting near the end — Ryder specifically asks Garber to deliver the $10 million ransom money — which actually works here because Garber is just a routine MTA worker and not a member of the Transit Authority police department. By not having Garber posited as an authority figure, it makes him a little more vulnerable and essentially brings him down to Ryder’s level.

While Scott sometimes sacrifices performance for eye candy, here he gets some solid performances out of an already-impressive cast. It’s interesting to see Washington play the more laidback role this time out; his Garber is just an ordinary working stiff with some flaws who gets to react to an extraordinary situation. Travolta obviously relishes riffing on his similar bad-guy role from Face-Off, affecting a cold stare and adopting the tell-tale neck tattoo and thinly-shaped goatee — obvious remnants from his recent prison stint. Even the supporting actors are seemingly cast against type: Gandolfini plays the mayor as a confused and somewhat buffoonish character, far removed from his boisterous Tony Soprano; the usually-aggressive John Turturro plays the hostage negotiator as a soft-spoken almost teacher-like mentor; and even the frequently chatty Luis Guzman is atypically quiet and reserved here. But I think the real star is the well-developed and nicely-paced script by Brian Helgeland. Although I frequently bristle when plot points and details are needlessly changed in remakes, I think all of his embellishments and updates here not only make sense but also improve the narrative. And, to be honest, in this age of cell phones, Wi-Fi laptops and portable devices, it would have been unrealistic to take over an entire subway car filled with people and not expect someone to be able to communicate with the outside world and relay what’s going on. What’s interesting is that even with these minor security breaches — whether anticipated or not — Ryder is still able to pull off his stunt and basically bring an entire city to a standstill.

Comments (0)

Leave a comment

Title
Comment	smaller | bigger
Name
Email
	Add Comment