Review: The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3

Four armed hijackers led by loudmouth John Travolta take over a NYC train, demanding a $10 million ransom. They will kill passengers one by one if their one hour deadline isn’t met. Enter dispatcher Denzel Washington, currently being investigated on bribery claims (and facing a suspension), and the would-be negotiator in this extremely tense situation. It’s up to Washington to keep things cool whilst the authorities, including NYPD negotiator John Turturro, scramble to come up with a proper strategy. Luis Guzman is one of Travolta’s cohorts, a disgruntled former rail employee, whilst James Gandolfini is the pompous mayor, Michael Rispoli is Washington’s boss, and Jason Butler Harner (the loony serial killer in “Changeling”) is one of the passengers.

In 1974, journeyman director Joseph Sargent directed an engrossing, perfectly cast, typically 70s New York thriller called “The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3”. If you haven’t seen it, do so, it’s terrific. In this 2009 Tony Scott remake, we have a director of allegedly higher standing (I loved “Enemy of the State” and “Déjà Vu”) proceeding to remake a perfectly fine film, by going against absolutely everything that made the first film work. Clearly the technologically masturbatory filmmaker was entirely the wrong guy for this gig. What the film needed (and the original had) were a quirky lead actor (Walter Matthau), a measured, cold-as-ice villain (Robert Shaw), engaging supporting characters, a gritty style, a gripping story, and lots and lots of tension. It’s a lot of fun, even now. What Scott gives us is a tolerable lead performance from a mainstream star, an embarrassingly fatuous (but distressingly humourless) villain played by an actor who always fails as a villain, indistinguishable henchmen, and a director who thinks what the film really needed was flashy photography and editing, and slow-motion shots of a moving train. Has Scott ever been on a train? They move kinda fast, dude, though they’re curiously never on time. Hell, there’s even a slow-mo shot of a swirling chopper for absolutely no good reason whatsoever. After about the third or fourth obscuring shot of someone being seen through a pretentiously stylised rendering of a train window, I felt like strangling someone. It doesn’t add anything, Mr. Scott, it just makes you and cinematographer Tobias Schliessler look pretentious. Less is more, and that goes double for the most contrived and unnecessary way of shoe-horning a car crash into a movie I’ve seen in ages.

Just look at the original, if you need a guide on how to do this kind of film right. Hell, even the opening credits pissed me off here, and at times it’s so badly shot that one can’t see a damn thing. And do all trains have blue-green lighting? Why does Denzel’s workplace have the exact same lighting? It’s so overly indulgent as to be counter-productive, though at least it’s not as thematically and violently offensive as Scott’s disgraceful “Man on Fire” (also starring Denzel, in a shameful bit of sympathy-buying casting for a morally diseased cause). The style worked wonderfully in “Enemy of the State”, but here the late Scott just takes me out of the film with his cinematic masturbation.

Denzel’s playing a very different character to the Matthau one, and of course gives a totally different, understated performance. I miss Matthau, but at least the change to the character (he was a cop in the first one) didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, and Denzel rarely does subpar work. I rather liked that his character had a bit of dirt on him, as it’s not the norm. Travolta, as I said, is an embarrassment. But his first couple of moments are interestingly grim-faced and menacing, before the patented ‘Ain’t it cool?’ Travolta bad guy schtick comes in to ruin it all. Actually, he even tries to ape Sam Jackson at various points, especially with his use of an infamously Sammy J-esque, twelve-letter expletive (‘Greaseball’ is another favourite of Travolta’s, perhaps a “Grease” in-joke?). Shaw was a slow-burn, Travolta is not, and is clearly miscast. And that’s a shame, because in the few moments in which Travolta calms down, one sees an interestingly nihilistic fatalism to him. He’s like an apolitical terrorist in some ways, albeit an extremely low-rent one (though the twist with his character is obvious and implausible). The supporting cast get little to do, but I gotta say I found Turturro well-cast and quite good in his role. I figured for sure he’d chew the scenery, but he measures his performance pretty well. The late James Gandolfini would’ve been better in the Turturro role, but he’s fine anyway (If only so one can make teamster jokes about Tony Soprano being elected mayor!). The ubiquitous Guzman only stands out as one of Travolta’s henchman because I recognise the guy. He gets nothing to do, and that’s a shame given how much fun Martin Balsam was in the role originally. The other henchmen...they just make up the numbers.

Some of the story elements still work well enough that the film isn’t exactly a stinker (the idea of a heist on a seemingly inescapable train still holds interest and the basic story hasn’t even been changed much), but this is still a big disappointment that gets just about everything wrong. I did like the idea of a passenger having video chat open on his laptop, though, which I found to be a realistic update. Sadly, very little is done with it, after a while. Also, I’m glad that the film only hinted at our modern, real world terrorism without going overboard with it. A few hints here and there are necessary (‘Coz it’s what anyone in this situation would be thinking. Oh shit, it’s 9/11 on a train!), but too much can be, well, too much. Remember when action movies featured terrorists and we were allowed to be entertained by them? Yeah, wonder what happened there...not that this film is a welcome return to that era, or anything.

Only those who haven’t seen the original might get something out of this, but I can’t even be sure of that, so forget it. See the original, it’s great fun. I’d like to give that same advice to Mr. Scott and writer Brian Helgeland (Whose Oscar-winning script for “L.A. Confidential” must be viewed as a fluke by now), as they clearly haven’t seen it themselves. And if they have, they surely haven’t understood why it still works where their version epically fails. Even the 90s TV movie remake didn’t piss me off as much as this big-time Hollywood misfire. The final insult is the ending, partly dictated by the change to the protagonist, but such a conventional letdown after the quirky and sardonic ending of the original. I’d skip this one, folks, nothing much to see here.

Rating: C-