The Taking of Pelham 123

Welcome to another episode of The "D" List.

Today's film is The Taking of Pelham 123. Directed by Tony Scott A.K.A Ridley's baby bro. Written by Brian Helgeland based on the novel by John Godey.

Apparently this is a remake of an previous adaptation of the book in 1974 starring Walter Matthau as Denzel's character and Robert Shaw as John Travolta's character. This remake is a much more updated when it comes to the current climate of what's going on with the world and the economic times.

Our story brings us to the underground control center of the MTA. Walter Garber played by the always phenomenal Denzel Washington is manning the control desk monitoring the trains when he notices that train 123 from Pelham has stopped in the tunnel when it has green lights all the way through. At this point you can tell that the train has been hijacked by a crew of ex cons led by Ryder played by the equally phenomenal John Travolta. The rest of the film expands on the cat and mouse game between Garber and Ryder as the hostage negotiations take place.

For the 1st two acts this film is awesome. The back and forth between Garber and Ryder is razor sharp. Travolta completely owns this character. He does something in this film that's very rare. You don't hate this villain. At least I didn't. I thought he was the coolest villain since the Joker in The Dark Knight. The story is paced nicely as you slowly get hints at what Ryder's end game really is when he hijacks the train and why he did it.

They also do a good job of making Garber the anti hero. He's a regular guy with real life problems that come out in the open. I liked that about the character. Historically in movies of this genre the average joe that has no business getting involved in a hostage crisis stumbles into it. He or she then presses the superhero button and miraculously saves the day.

That's not the case here until...........

The end.

I won't say what happens but in my opinion it was a soft and very weak way to come to the conclusion of this fantastic game of 1-upmanship between a hijacker that planned his caper to perfection and a lowly civil service employee who wished he had called in sick that day. It's so out of place with what I had seen over the last hour and ten minutes that I just felt deflated and unsatisfied when the credits rolled.

This is where I bring up how Tony Scott "almost" returned to making good movies. Over his directorial career, Scott has a pretty solid resume of well made, entertaining films, i.e. True Romance, Top Gun and Crimson Tide. (my personal favorite) But somewhere along the way he began to make his recent films with an unnecessary use of flashy transitions and washed out film.

Best examples. Man on Fire, Domino, and to a lesser extent Deja Vu.

It's what I like to call the SOS method. (Style Over Substance) Historically a bad director will try and abracadabra the audience from watching a bad film by using hyper editing, crazy effects or over the top camera work.

This is what frustrated me about Scott because he's not a bad director. Not in the least. It puzzled me why he would go that route instead of polishing the script himself or just readjusting scenes in production. He does use a little of the flashiness here but it doesn't distract.

The Taking of Pelham 123 was and has been Scott's closest attempt of recapturing the solid well paced filmmaking that made him a heavyweight in this business. That is until the end of the film.

On the 5 star scale. The Taking of Pelham 123 gets 2.5 stars. And a toss between "Give it a Shot" (Hey, this is the 1st time I used that recommendation)  and "Netflix It" recommendation.

I could bump it up to 3 stars for the amazing performance of Travolta. He totally steals the show here. Denzel of course was great but this was Danny Zuko's moment in the sun. There were some other good performances from John Turturro and James Gandolfini as the mayor. Sadly for me though it wasn't enough to save this film. The end was too weak.

That's it for today.

My next review will be The Hangover.

By now you all are probably aware of the stunning success of this Very Bad Things knock off comedy. Let me tell you the people have spoken and they are right on the money here. This was one of the best comedies to come out in a while.

Until Next Episode....I'll Save You A Seat!

"D"