The Taking of Pelham 123 | Review
2009’s ‘The Taking of Pelham 123’ is actually a remake of previous film adaptations of the novel of the same name, written by Morton Freedgood. I’ve never seen the previous film adaptation, nor have I seen the TV-film adaptation, and I’ve never read the book, so there’s nothing for me to compare this new version to. Directed by Tony Scott (‘Man on Fire’ & ‘Deja Vu’), ‘The Taking of Pelham 123’ is a standard thriller film heightened by its strong lead actors.
Denzel Washington portrays a train dispatcher named Walter Garber, a nice and average man just doing his job, but whom may also be hiding a secret from his past. John Travolta has a completely changed appearance as tattooed criminal, Ryder. In ‘The Taking of Pelham 123’, Ryder and his followers end up hijacking a subway train and uses the passengers for ransom. Walter receives a phone call from Ryder, who informs Walter of the situation and demands $10 million in exactly one hour; for every minute after the hour has passed, a passenger will be shot and killed.
An interesting thing about the film is the fact that it, for the most part, takes place in “real-time.” This means that the passage of time in the film correlate with the passage of time in real life as you’re watching the film. The real-time scenario of the film makes its somewhat more entertaining because the 60-minute countdown has more of an effect on the audience.
Walter is unfortunate enough to be the main man in charge of negotiating with Ryder. He is forced to stay in contact with Ryder for the majority of the film, and the conversations between Walter and Ryder are pretty interesting. Every time they talk to one another, information from their pasts slowly trickle out. Ryder pushes one conversation in particular to a point where Walter confesses to an event from his past. Whether or not this confession is true or not is left unproven, which is a good thing because it adds some ambiguity and interest into Walter’s past. The conversations between Ryder and Walter are the highlights of the film because Ryder is such an interesting and philosophical character, and he’s such a loose cannon that his actions are never necessarily predictable; John Travolta does a swell job at portraying the character of Ryder. Though the conversations between the two lead characters are interesting and delve into their pasts, the film never explores their pasts enough. There’s a lack of pay-off.
For the most part ‘The Taking of Pelham 123’ is entertaining throughout. The ending seemed kind of rushed, though, and overall conclusion was lacking in comparison to the provocative drama and events in the middle part of the film. ‘Pelham’ is entertaining and has interesting characters and film choices, but its skip-able. Hopefully Tony Scott’s second “train movie,” ‘Unstoppable’, which again stars Denzel Washington as well as Chris Pine, offered more than the interesting but average ‘Pelham’.
