With all due respect to John Travolta and the rough year he's had, I've noticed he has a tendency to chew up a lot of scenery when he's playing a bad guy.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he doesn't know how to be mean or feels awkward playing psychotic killers, but it comes off as a bit unrealistic and a lot uncomfortable.
Other than that, "The Taking of Pelham 123" hits most of the right notes as a first-class thriller.
Actually, this movie belongs to Denzel Washington and his terrific character, Walter Garber. He's an unassuming subway train dispatch/controller who is very good at his job.
Garber started out as a motorman -- the person who runs the individual trains. So, he knows the system inside and out. He's the perfect guy to deal with a problem when the subway car -- Pelham 123 -- stops suddenly and unexpectedly in the middle of its run beneath New York City.
Ryder (Travolta) calls himself a terrorist, and his demands are simple. Ten million dollars within an hour or he starts killing passengers.
Oh yeah, and he would appreciate it if his new best buddy and confidant, Walter Garber, would deliver the cash himself, despite the objections of the police negotiator (John Turturro) and the skeptical mayor (James Gandolfini).
Ryder can smell a lie if he gets a whiff. Since he's gazing at the Internet while he's sitting there waiting for his cash, he sees that Garber is under indictment for possibly taking a bribe. It's just a little life-or-death game he'll be playing to fill the time until that money arrives. It's a nice touch.
And it would have been even more effective, if only Travolta hadn't insisted on screeching like an out-of-control nut job. In the 1974 original, Robert Shaw played the main bad guy as cool Mr. Blue and never revealed his real name.
Also, inexplicably, Garber goes from mild-mannered civil servant to must-stop-the-crooks supercop. But, at least Denzel made it more palatable with his subtle efforts.
In the first "Pelham," Garber was played by Walter Matthau -- a transit authority detective. His name was Zachary. I'm guessing they changed Denzel's character to Walter as a tribute. Notice also Washington's Garber is wearing a yellow shirt with a checked tie; Matthau's Garber donned a yellow tie with a checked shirt.
Having seen both, I'd say the original script was a little more plausible if you can get past the ethnic and gender slurs of the day.
The new one tries to be more dramatic and thus a bit less smooth. Still, if it gets you to check out the old one to compare, it'll have done its job fairly well.
And even if it doesn't, you'll be treated to a decent thriller.
Steve Salles can be reached at films@standard.net.
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