[Movie Review] THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123
Up front, I must say that I have never seen the original version of The Taking of Pelham 123 or the 1998 TV movie based on the book that the movie is based on (sheesh), so this review will pertain exclusively to this film. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing this film, but my sister took one look at the trailer for this and declared that we had to see it opening weekend. I like Denzel, and Travolta’s okay as long as he reigns in his constant need to go over the top in terms of his acting, so I thought that it would be a decent enough time at the theater. Well, I am sadly here to inform you that not only is this one of the most middling, flat, “why isn’t this better considering the talent involved” movies I’ve seen lately, it also holds the dubious honor of being the single worst theater experience of my entire life, and that includes the time that a guy got stabbed by a gang member during my screening of Troy*.
If you watched the trailer and thought that it looked like just about every other thriller/hostage movie that you’ve ever seen, you’d be about 90% correct. It hits every single expected, pedestrian beat, so much so to the point that I began to call specific plot points and hooks well before the film intends to let the audience in on them. “Hmm, they’ve zoomed in on this stupid kid and his laptop. Think that’ll come into play later? Oh, they keep showing that stupid rat rubbing up on that sniper’s leg. Wonder how that’s gonna end up?” Normally, I would just shrug my shoulders, say “meh” and keep on moving, but dammit, a movie starring Denzel friggin’ Washington and Tony friggin’ Soprano needs to be more than “meh”. A movie involving about five million back-to-back car wrecks should be more than “meh”. What the hell happened here? You’ve got a decent plot: a crazy guy holding hostages underground in a subway demands money, must do battle of wits with everyman, blah blah blah. Why is this such a dull venture? This thing has a number of problems, so let’s start with the biggie: the plot.
It is pretty straightforward for the most part, save for a nifty little twist near the end, but the film suffers from being so painfully straightforward. A thriller like this should be a roller coaster ride. You climb the hill in act one, plunge down the drop and do a few flips in act two, and coast it on home for act three. This one plunges down the hill only to ride straight ahead for the entirety of the film. Once Travolta and his team takes over the train, the film is pretty much over. After that point, it plateaus and never recovers. It plays so much like a made-for-TV movie, which handicaps the efforts of the cast to breathe some life into the thing. You really don’t know squat about these people save for Denzel’s Walter, so he’s the only one you sort of care for. “But Kristina, he’s the hero! Shouldn’t we care?” Of course you should. Problem is, there’s a train car full of people down there that I am supposed to care for, and I know absolutely nothing about them. From what I’m told, the original Pelham featured a lot of interplay between the passengers, something that is sorely missing here. When people take bullets to the brain, chest, and every other area, I didn’t feel anything but surprise at how much blood the effects team uses when a bullet enters a body. It splatters everywhere like spaghetti sauce. I couldn’t have cared less about any of these people or their safety. They even go for the most emotionally manipulative cliche imaginable: having two of the hostages be a woman and her young son, and I still did not give a crap. When Travolta aims his gun at her and her son, I didn’t so much as shrug.
It really is a paint by numbers film for the most part, and when it tries to be something else, it becomes laughable. There is an absurd sequence where we follow a police motorcade through the streets as it races against the clock to get the ransom money delivered. This is all well and good, until the motorcade drops like flies. They are zooming through the city streets, and then one of the cars is hit by a car. Two minutes later, another gets hit by a truck. Then a motorcycle-riding cop flips his bike and flies onto a parked car. Then another car gets hit by the biggest truck ever, flips several times, flips OVER A BRIDGE, continues to flip in the air, smashes to the ground, then catches fire. I could not stop laughing. It was absolutely ludicrous, and insulting to my intelligence.
If the plot sucks, the best actor alive can’t save it, and this film proves it. Now, I don’t mean to say that Denzel is bad here, but he isn’t anything extraordinary here, either. He’s got his moments, but overall, it’s a pretty bland performance that any actor in Hollywood today could duplicate. I blame this more so on the role than on Denzel himself, but the character is the typical downtrodden guy who made a mistake and spends the entirety of this film in a redemption arc. That’s it. Even worse, Denzel’s Walter Garber starts the film as a regular dude, but by the end of it, he’s a goddamn action hero, involved in a car chase and a shootout. It irritated me that the plot couldn’t be satisfied with the guy being who the film has established him to be for the first two acts. If you’ve seen Collateral, it’s the same thing that happens to Jamie Foxx in that movie. And my God, Travolta is so ridiculous in this movie. Not only is there a bunch of unnecessary gay subtext going on with the character (wanting to make Denzel his bitch in jail, his Village People look), but if you think you’ve seen Travolta over the top as a villain, you ain’t seen nothin’ ’til you see him here. He literally cannot finish a sentence without cackling madly and saying some version of the f-bomb. I’ve never seen such a clownishly stupid villain in all my life. Not only is Travolta playing this Ryder guy like a Looney Tunes villain, but also his motivation for doing all of this MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. If I break it down, it would be a spoiler (and I don’t think I even fully understand it, anyway), but man, when you finally hear the reason why, I dare you to say, “Yeah, that makes sense, I get that”. Having a bunch of tattoos, some hideous facial hair, and a vocabulary limited to swear words do not make you a villain. It makes you a caricature. This film did not need a caricature, and Travolta is more of a distraction than a help. He’s terrible here. James Gandolfini isn’t around long enough to make much of an impression as the mayor of New York City. Same goes for John Tuturro as a stereotypical FBI hostage negotiator.
You know a movie is really dull when even the visual schizophrenia of Tony Scott can’t spice things up. No amount of lame freeze-frames, ticking clocks, and swooping aerial shots could save this thing. It doesn’t completely suck, but it is so average given the people involved, and that is the film’s major sin. The trailers made it look far more engaging than it was. It’s a shame to waste such talent on such weak sauce.
* Why do grown adults feel the need to talk loudly and make fools of themselves in a crowded theater. If I went into more detail about the sort of people involved in this fiasco, it would turn this thread into something that I don’t want it to, but for God’s sake, shut the hell up in the theater, folks! And before you ask, YES, a guy really was stabbed in the theater I went to when I saw Troy. I was in Charlotte, NC for a friend’s wedding during the opening weekend of Troy and a couple of us went to see it. We sat near the front and about halfway through the movie, we hear this agonizing scream. A bunch of gang people in the back of the theater had stabbed a guy and just strolled out like it was nothing. I saw the guy staggering down the stairs in the theater, and he had blood on his shirt. My friends and I ran the hell out of there, so I don’t know if he survived or not.
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6 Responses to “[Movie Review] THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123”
You really should see the original, I have no interest in seeing this. You know what I did with my $9.00 instead of seeing this movie? I went and bought the original on DVD as it’s been too long since I’ve seen it.
I paid $7.50
$7.50 too much, though.
I liked it, but it needed more action and it had a HORRIBLY rushed ending. Kris, you know what I mean.
Yes, the ending was awful.
Chalk this film’s failure up to it being rushed due to the strike. We’re going to see a LOT of strike films this year, so don’t be too surprised if a few more big-time duds are on the horizon. I’m hearing horror stories about how Transformers 2 has turned out…
I could give a shit about Transformers 2 (I’ve never even seen the first one), but I think the movie would have been the same retarded Michael Bay action movie even without the strike.
I loved Transformers one, like…..LOVED IT. This summer has been filled with disappointments…*cough* Terminator 4 *cough*
I’m shaking with excitement for Transformers 2 but I got to be honest…I’m concerned as crap for it
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