THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 (2009)

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 (2009)

(Action, Thriller, Crime) [R]

Listen, don't let this guy bring you to his reality. 'Cause, that's what he wants to do... he hurts you, you're gonna get angry. He's got the advantage, understand?

This is a remake of a 1974 movie (which was based on a novel) of the same name, only the numbers are spelled out in the title of that movie. In this one four dudes take over a subway train in NY. The leader's name is Ryder and he’s just a full blown jerk (played by John Travolta). He only wants to talk to the person named Walter Garber (played by Denzel Washington, one of the best actors of our time), who is a newly appointed supervisor in charge of that train line. It becomes clear that Ryder wants $10 million dollars like super fast so that he can cause turmoil in the stock market. It’s all very loosely connected. As the tensions mount and Ryder becomes more unhinged, can Walter negotiate the best solution and why is he involved in the first place?

First off, there is just a ton of completely unnecessary profanity in this movie. It’s almost distracting how much Ryder cusses. I have seen plenty of pissed-off anger people in my day, and zero of them dropped bombs like Ryder. For me, this is a lack of effort to just articulate the moment on the part of the writers. Aside from that however both Travolta and Washington are fantastic in this movie. You can feel the tension through the screen. Like if your couch or seat is 35 feet away…it won’t save you from the tense moments and feelings of anxiety these two actors portray on film. It’s pretty well done in that respect. Even though there are action scenes in the movie, it’s more dialog-driven and that plays out well most of the time, but some of the inquiries from Ryder meant to sound smart, feel un-inspired, and directionless. It’s possible that this was done to show how quickly Ryder could be triggered, but some of it happens when Walter is just as cool as a cucumber. 

The attention to detail is stunning. The production crew even went as far as to work closely with the MTA in NY to get the details of the control room and how it would work correctly. The lighting all works to provide the atmosphere needed since a lot of this movie is in tunnels.  What doesn’t work is the bizarre camera work and wonkiness regarding that. I guess this was done to make things more interesting between scene transitions and sometimes during, but it’s annoying and really didn’t bring anything to the table other than something to complain about. 

Ultimately this is a fairly complicated heist movie that didn’t exactly need a train to pull off. I guess you have to hijack something, but someone as supposedly smart as Ryder’s character could have come up with 100 other ways to baste this bbq. Of course, that wouldn’t be as interesting for the moviegoers. 

For Travolta or Washington fans this movie is probably a must because they are that good, but if you want to see a really good movie involving a train, there are others. Even one with Denzel Washington that comes out a year after this called UNSTOPPABLE is a better flick.

I give THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 a 4 out of 7. Solid, but not mind-blowing. Writing and camera work beat this thing silly and the brilliant acting wasn’t enough to give it a better score.

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