As Hollywood remakes go, The Taking of Pelham 123 isn’t a bad
candidate. A 1974 film about a subway hijacking co-starring Walter
Matthau and Robert Shaw, the original is terrifically entertaining but
probably just short of a classic. One of the definitive “New York in
the ’70s” movies, it’s not very well-known now, and its premise is
worth updating for the realities of modern New York — the
technology, the terrorism fears, the new political and economic
paradigm, etc.
For most of its running time, filmmaker Tony Scott’s update does a
more respectable job than its overheated trailer suggests, helped along
by some good casting: Denzel Washington in Matthau’s role as the wry
everyman transit official manning the desk when the hijacking occurs;
James Gandolfini as the mayor; Luis Guzman in a too-small role as one
of the hijackers (the Martin Balsam role in the original).
Where the casting goes awry is with John Travolta’s awkward,
jittery, self-involved overacting as the chief hijacker, a character
the film invests with a preposterous, movie-world motivation. This new
Pelham similarly jumps the tracks in its final stretch, when the
film desperately and implausibly orchestrates a mano-a-mano showdown
between Washington and Travolta — a finale that the more
taut, more realistic original didn’t indulge in.
Now playing, multiple locations