The Taking of Pelham 123 (*½)

Directed by: Tony Scott
Starring: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, John Torturro, James Gandolfini, Luis Guzman
Seen: September 28th 2009

*½ Out of ****

In general I am a very big fan of Tony Scott’s filmmaking talent. I love the crisp and edgy editing he brought to movies like Man on Fire, Domino, Déjà vu, and the excellent BMW short Beat the Devil, as it is unlike most techniques you’ll see. I also enjoyed the tension he managed to bring to the screen in movies like Spy Game and Enemy of the State (and Man on Fire yet again). But in The Taking of Pelham 123 it feels as if he was expecting to simply arrive and everything would happen by itself. The movie feels extremely lazy, in its writing or plot-creation and filming, as if the easy way out was selected every time a fork came in the proverbial filmmaker’s road.

Garber (Washington) is a big shot at the Rail Transit Authority, but due to his being investigated for illegal activity he is relegated to a desk-job, that of a rail traffic controller (similar to that of a flight traffic controller, but with about 1% of the stress and intensity level). Washington brings the role to life brilliantly, giving us a man who is flawed but fighting to get out good on the other side, a man who may or may not turn out to be the eventual hero. Ryder (Travolta) heads up a band of criminals who hijack a New York City subway train and hold 18 people hostage for a ransom, willing only to communicate with authorities via Garber, and no-one else. Travolta plays Ryder as an extreme sociopath who simply cannot be bargained with, and this over-the-top approach takes away some of the impact the character might have had with a more measured interpretation. Torturro is, after Washington, probably the most believable character in the movie, portraying a New York City hostage negotiator lieutenant (it’s a good thing he left the extravagant Agent Simmonds persona from Transformers at home…). Gandolfini plays the slightly slimy Mayor of New York who is currently being investigated on sexual misconduct charges, and isn’t interested in a second term in office. Luis Guzman plays Phil Ramos, formerly a railroad employee, now part of Ryder’s group.

The film is riddled with moments that make you think another approach would have been much more sensible but wasn’t explored, or was thrown out because they did not provide for the same ‘action’ level as a sensible story accelerant. For example – the ransom money is transported across the busy Manhattan by a police car (the impressive Ford Mustang) escorted by 6 motorcycles. When this car is totalled as it speeds through yet another intersection without complete disregard for normal traffic (this supposedly makes for good action, as cars go flying and everything blows up), the motorcyclists simply take the bags of cash and drive on – why was this approach not used from the start, or, as one character points out to a muted response, why not use a helicopter for something this urgent and time constrained? Another is the laptop of a passenger in plain view, on video chat with his girlfriend, that the criminals don’t seem to hear or see (which, I assume, builds tension), which dies as its battery eventually runs flat, but is switched on a few minutes later again to tell the girlfriend he loves her – immediate internet connection and all. In other words, the film is riddled with stupidity to build the opportunity for fake tension and recycled action sequences.

It is however not all bad, as the editing retains some of the freshness normally associated with Scott’s movies, and the actors are very competent at portraying exactly what the script tells them to. The choices made in the telling of this story simply do not hold up, and I am choosing to forget this one and see if Tony Scott can get back on track with his next movie (and some of the plot summaries for those upcoming ones do look promising…).