I haven’t seen the original Pelham movie so I can’t say I’ve taken any interest in the slew of ‘this isn’t as good as the original’ comments that I’ve heard so many people make about this movie recently.
People always say that remake’s are never a good idea. I disagree. the point of a re-make, surely, is to the bring a good story to a new audience. It doesnt matter how great a film was 30 years ago.. a lot of people will never have the opportunity to watch a film that old. For that reason, I’ve never thought that a remake should be overly compared to the original source film, because it should be different enough that it is worth making anew (I refer you to Gus Van Sant’s 1998 shot for shot remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho as case in point) A remake isn’t bad because the original was good and a lot of people refuse to see past that.
Unfortunately in this case, remake or no remake- the film just isn’t that great.
Sometimes the sign of a good film is coming out and realising you didn’t look at your watch once throughout. I didn’t look at my watch… but I didn’t move a muscle in my face either. This film is just distinctly average.
I’m genuinely dissapointed I didn’t enjoy this film more, particularly since Denzel Washington and Tony Scott’s recent collaberations, ‘Man on Fire’ (one of my favourite movie’s) and ‘Deja Vu’ were so spectacularly awesome!
Washington is, as ever, extremely watchable, but I couldn’t help but wonder what drew him to such a boring role- aside from grasping the opportunity to work with Scott again, having been such a successful pairing in the past. That sort of thing shouldn’t be running through your head whilst watching the movie.
I’d like to lay the blame on John travolta, but unfortunately his character was pretty fun even if he was a walking cartoon character. No, the biggest problem this film has, is it’s distinct lack of threat. Travolta is menacing enough as the main protagonist ‘Ryder’ (with a Y – he likes that) but all I see when I look at him is – Travolta. I don’t see the character, and I’m not sure if that’s a problem I have, or that he has.
There is so little sense of jeopardy throughout this movie, it has to be manufactured out of nothing, car’s crashing just for the sake of it, people crossing the path of an oncoming train in just the nick of time for no good reason. For me there was no genuine danger, i didn’t fear for any of the hostages- even though not all of them make it through. That’s not a spoiler, because I guarantee you will not care who lives or dies.
When the film started, I thought the projectionist had put ‘Phone booth’ on by mistake. A hip hop track plays over gritty jump cuts of new york city and it’s inhabitants. The taking of Pelham 123 is similar to Phone booth in another way- it is mostly two guys talking to each other over the phone. Yes, I think that sounds pretty boring too, but then if you have seen phone booth then you’ll know how a whole movie watching one guy stand in a phone booth can be tense and exciting. There is an escalating danger and menace that permeates the picture. That is why The taking of Pelham 123 is such a failure to my mind, it had multiple bad guys, a hijacked subway train, hostages, gunfire, car chases… and yet it never comes close to being as engaging as ‘Phone Booth’
Overall a well put together (it is Tony Scott we are talking about here), reasonably fun, by the numbers romp- but ultimately disposable. If you have seen Man on Fire or Deja Vu, skip The taking of Pelham 123 and wait for the next Scott/ Washington collaberation. I’m sure there will be one, and I’m sure it will be better than this.
