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** Alert: Minor Spoilers **
In this remake of 1974 Taking of Pelham One Two Three, reckless gangster Ryder (John Travolta) kidnaps a New York subway train with a gang of faceless goons. Ryder demands 10 Million Dollars within one hour, or he will kill one passenger for each minute over time, and he won’t talk to NYPD hostage negotiator Lt. Camonetti (John Turturro) but only to train dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington), who was the unfortunate guy answering Ryder’s first call.

Ryder: Shit always hits you man.

It’s a two man-movie: John Travolta vs. Denzel Washington. Travolta’s henchmen are as faceless as the passengers of Pelham 123 which makes it hard to care much about them. The usually great John Turturro is sidelined not only by Travolta/Ryder but also by the script, and James Gandolfini as the Mayor has the unfortunate duty to point out the script’s plot-holes and ‘twists’ a quarter of an hour after the audience has noticed them.
So the movie rests solely on Travolta’s and Washington’s shoulders, who both have proved more than once that they can carry a film. But unfortunately they are not man enough to carry the titular subway-train. Travolta is a stereotype villain with a bad temper and horrible mustache, and Denzel seems just tired and overstrained – adequate for his character, granted, but his transition from good boy to avenger is as unbelievable as the fabulous profit Ryder makes on the exchange market or the fact that none of the passengers in a driverless speeding train has the brains to pull the emergency brakes. Another pointless remake.

The Taking of Pelham 123 movie trailer

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 11:23 am and is filed under 2-star-movies, 3-star-movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.