The Taking Of Pelham 123

The Taking Of Pelham 123 (2009)



Within five minutes the crew of four hijackers is aboard the train. Everything is planned to a tee, calculated, not overlooking any sign of countermove by the MTA workers aboard the train, the MTA dispatch workers at Grand Central Station, the New York City police, or any of the passengers. Calmly and methodically, the hijackers position themselves within the first car, disconnect the first car with the rest of the train, drive it to the middle of the tunnel between 42nd and 50th St., and let havoc pile up before contacting the MTA and making their demands.
When the time is right Robert Shaw picks up the 2-way radio, and calmly and coldy speaks to the irrascible Walter Matthau and makes his demands, "One million dollars in one hour, or a hostage dies for every minute you are late"...



Oh wait. That was 35 years ago, and both Matthau and Shaw are long dead. The decidely Un-PC dialogue and interactions that made the originals interesting, funny, fun, relatable, and real are gone and replaced with Brian Helgeland's snappy if slightly expository dialogue. Helgeland's characters exude testosterone and snappy dialogue the plot unfolds at a comfortably fast pace (the hijacking occurs within the first 5 minutes of the film) so as not to waste any time, but something feels decidedly "off" with this film.
The biggest issue is the casting of leads Denzel Washington and John Travolta as protagonist Walter Garber and villainous mastermind Ryder, respectively. Director Tony Scott focuses solely on these two characters, making them the most fully-formed of anyone else in the movie (something which the original forgoes in an attempt to make every character ---protagonist, villain, and passengers --- at least interesting).
Garber, as played by Washington, is a man who is demoted to train dispatcher after taking a bribe some years ago, so in casting Washington one immediately gets the sense that this is someone who should be in control, but unfortunately isn't. While Washington's turn as "average-Joe-action-hero" in the third act (more on that in a bit) rings less true, this tweaking of his backstory at least makes the image of Washington sitting behind a dispatch desk more plausible. Unlike Ryder's backstory, Garber's backstory makes him a more plausible character for the simple fact that, through the casting of Washington, Garber stopped being an "everyman" and became the center of control; Matthau, back in 1974, was able to be the sardonic everyman who eventually outwits the hijackers; Washington just looks as if he's always on top of his game. At least the casting choice is justified in part by Helgeland's backstory to the character.
Travolta on the other hand plays his role with the subtly of a drunken Jackson Pollack throwing paint on a canvas...only without the artistic merit. Ryder here is given a ridiculous backstory (he's a former Wall Street shark who siphoned funds from a pension fund and was summarily thrown in jail, justifying his grduge against New York), tattoos, sunglasses (in the subway...for some reason) and the most ridiculous handlebar mustache that he might as well have been in biopic about the Village People (which seems apt, in regards to the hints of homosexuality in the character). Every other line said (or rather "shouted") is "Motherfucker", but Travolta cracks his voice while shouting, as if he didn't really know what he was doing and seems uncomfortable in his role. Whoever designed the character's look (especially that fucking mustache) must be stuck in the mid-1990's, when "badass" meant tattoos and scowls (that's not scary. At all. AT ALL). Robert Shaw's character, on the other hand, is given little backstory (the only solid piece of history about him is that he's a former mercenary), never loses his cool, and remains cool, composed and even polite as he's executing people. Travolta is so unhinged he becomes a farce, adn he's played characters like that so often that it's old (hell, his Howard Saint character from 2004's The Punisher is more threatening). Not only is he too unhinged and goofy-looking to appear menacing, but the fact that he's a former Wall Street hustler, to me, implies that he would be more the person to finance and supply the hijackers and reap the benefits, not sit down there in the subway with a gun in his hand. Gone also are the interactions between the hijackers, where we learn to distinguish each as being separate personalities: in this film, I don't even remember hearing the names of the gunmen, and only Ramos had any lines, and they were a lot stronger and in control than Ryder. May Guzman should have been the villain!
I guess the point about Ryder's backstory being unbelievable is more of a personal nitpick, since I'm always of the opinion that the less known about a character (especially a villain or antagonist), the more interesting (or scary) s/he becomes. Examples? Most recently there have been three outstanding villains: Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men, Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, and The Joker in The Dark Knight. What all these characters (which garnered each actor an Oscar, and remain prime examples of evil on film for the past decade) have in common is that they have a limited backstory (the only one with even half a past is Plainview). Explain too much about an iconic villain or character and you strip him of the mystery and interest factor, and the result would be the Halloween remake. (*shudders*)
However, back to this review...
Other actors do well with what screen time and material they're given, the most interesting being John Turturro as Camonetti (the "Greaseball motherfucka'"), a hostage negotiator; James Gandolfini as the Mayor, a pleasant and likable mix of Guiliani and Bloomberg; and Luis Guzman as Phil Ramos, Ryder's right-hand-man and former MTA employee who seems to be the real brains behind the operation (and he's also criminally underused and I wish he was in the film for longer than he was). Barely present? The women. Sure, there's Regina the MTA worker who herds the passengers off the train, and there's Garber's wife (who I don't even think got a name), and there's the girlfriend of a hostage who, while trying to perform a striptease for her boyfriend instead witnesses, via webcam, the hijacking. But this is very much a man's film, so they're unfortunately pushed aside.
Director Tony Scott seems to forget such cumbersome filmmaking techniques like "composition", "pacing", "clarity", "tension", and "relativity". This is the Tony Scott from Domino making a film that should be more like Crimson Tide or True Romance: a film that slowly builds to a dramatic climax. Instead the film opens loudly, and suddenly, to Jay-Z's "99 Problems" as Ryder walks down to the subway, and as the credits play we witness each hijacker getting into place. This is done cleverly (though I don't for the life of me know why he picked that song). But where Scott used the credits to push the story, he then forgets that great use of screentime to show off some directorial "style": at least 3 times in the film we witness either Garber, the Mayor, or Ryder talking to someone (offscreen or not) about something relatively mundane as the camera WHIP-PANS-AROUND-BECAUSE-IT'S-SO-FAST-PACED-AND-EXCITING!!! and then he'll open up the iris to the camera and streak the image and slow.....the.....film.....down....to.....dramatize....NOTHING (this happened during a helicopter flight near the end, when we were treated to no less than four separate slo-mo shots of a helicopter flying over New York). Other flourishes were more confusing: several point-of-view shots from Ryder's viewpoint through a blurry window showed that the camera was either not in focus or the lens was covered in a prism of some sort that blurred everything together, but I couldn't tell what the hell I was looking at. During the race to get the money to the subway, we were treated to shots lasting no more than a second, shot in handheld, with the camera zoomed in so the car or motorcycle in question filled the entire screen: if it weren't for the fact that the movie presented a map indicating where the money car was in relation to its destination, I wouldn't have been able to tell if it was driving down Broadway, a side street, flying through the air, or shooting out of someone's buttcrack. I hate that zoom-in-and-handheld-super-fast-cutting-in-a-car-chase shit.
Every bit of action is cranked up to 10, every line Travolta spews is shouted at level 22, and the music is cranked to 15 (whenever the film cut to the money cars, the soundtrack blasted a rap song, whereas the preceding and succeeding scene would have very subtle, mellow instrumentals playing... suffice it to say it didn't counterpoint very well.) How amp up is the action, when the action arrives? Well, in the original the money car causes a few accidents, then hits a fence, flips over and is totalled and the money is handed over to cops on motorbikes; in this version the money car hits about three or four cars that FLIP OVER possibly killing the passengers and drivers, and then gets hit by an ambulance, flipping over about 8 times, lands in the middle of the FDR Drive, and then an X-Wing fighter swoops down and blows it up. It happens EXACTLY like that. It's as if Scott is overcompensating for the relative lack of action by ramping everything up once the action gets going.
Alexander Witt, the second-unit director, did a commendable job with the chase sequences. It's jsut a shame that Scott's choice in shots seemed to prefer medium and close-up shots where wide shots would be best. I'm no action director, but if I were spending millions of dollars on an action sequence, I would want to shoot it in a way that the audience can actually see what's happening and take the time to absorb everything. Still, Mr. Witt (whose prior credit includes Casino Royale, amongst many other personal favorites) did a great job with the action...it just seemed like too much in what should otherwise be a potboiler thriller.
Whether this film is a remake to the 1974 film, or a third adaptation of the John Godey novel by the same name, one thing is true: it is solid enough until the action starts. It wasn't a vast improvement on the original, but I wasn't bored, and remember laughing at a few of Helgeland's lines. Once the chase is on, and once the third act starts everything seems to fall apart and it becomes a by-the-numbers thriller, as Garber realizes he's the ONLY person who can catch Ryder: I couldn't buy that, seeing as we've been led to accept Garber as a smarter-than-average everyman for two acts and it is unlikely he'll have the composure, skills, and driving expertise to chase Ryder down. The third act remained a problem i nthe 1974 film as well, as once the hijackers leave the train there's still 20 minutes left, and everything feels very anticlimactic.
If the action had stayed on the train this would have been a fun, believable if forgettable thriller. Scott's style of directing the action seems more appropriate for the mid-1990's adrenaline junkies, the kind of pacing that Speed excelled at. Here it's just inappropriate, especially as just the last act of the film is paced thusly.
I'd use the cliched "rollercoaster" ride analogy for this movie, but it doesn't seem apt. This is more like an express train that accelerates way too fast on its last stretch: most of it is a pleasant ride, but then it just goes by waaaaay too fast, and when you reach your final stop you vow, in an angry show against the conductors, never to ride that train again.
Judge for yourself, as I'm unlikely to see this movie again.

I did, however, see the trailer to Martin Scorsese's new movie Shutter Island, and it looks amazingly good. Can't wait. Also, I need to see Moon.

Compare the above trailer with the one below, for the 1974 original. I don't know about you, but the one below seems like a hell of a better time, if you ask me.




P.S. --- I saw The Hangover on Sunday as well. Expect a review soon.

The Taking Of Pelham 123 (1974)

A heist movie set in 1970's New York starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw? What can go wrong with that? Well, very little.
The Taking Of Pelham 123 gets the plot rolling along in less than 10 minutes, as ringleader Robert Shaw (along with three of his colleagues, including Martin Balsam, Earl Hindman ---of Home Improvement fame---, Hector Elizondo) hijack a subway train (the red line heading to Pelham Parkway) and hold the passengers hostage. Walter Matthau stars as Lt. Garber, a transit authority police lieutenant who is busy showing the Transit Authority headquarters off to a group of Oriental investors (whom he insults, assuming they don't understand English). The hijackers make their demands shortly after clogging up the entire subway system: either the City pays them$1,000,000 within 30 minutes, or they execute one hostage every minute until they do. It is up to Lt. Garber, and his on-duty partner, Rico Patrone (played with laid-back zest by Jerry Stiller) to stay one step ahead of the hijackers, save the hostages, and also figure out how the hijackers plan to escape from an underground train that can only go one of two directions. Car chases, shootouts, disregard for political correctness, and Robert Shaw ensue.
Walter Matthau spends much of the film trading barbs with Robert Shaw's Mr. Blue via two-way radio, bargaining for time and any concessions to prolong the execution of the hostages. While I liked that he was never in control of the situation I often wanted to see him do more than just talk into a microphone. He plays a very passive role here, which is necessary as he is someone who is almost out of his league with Mr. Blue (although he does manage to outsmart and trick them on at least two occassions). His expression in the final frame of the film, that humdrum, ironic look, is classic Matthau and an amusing coda. His blatant sexism ("What good's a plainclothes cop on that train, especially if it's a goddamn woman?") is amusing because it seems so out of character for the actor.
This is very much Robert Shaw's film: from his first apeparance on screen he commands attention, and manages to get it at every moment. He is epitome of cool, calculation (when not talking to Lt. Garber he plays crossword puzzles while contemplating which hostage to shoot). His character, given a cursory backstory, was a mercenary of some sort, and knows how to handle weapons, uncontrollable colleagues (personified in Hector Elizondo's Mr. Grey), and any inconsistancies in a plan. The man is also a sociopathic psychotic, expressed in a fun way near the climax. His demands, spoken clearly and in crisp, perfect English with a polite British accent, undercut the deadly person he has in store; even when leading a hostage off the train so he could be shot in the back, he calmly asks him to watch his step to avoid the third rail.
Mr. Elizondo's Mr. Grey is set up as an unstable mob hitman who was fired for being too uncontrollable, and he expresses that with an itchy trigger finger and a mysoginistic attitude towards one of the female hostages. He also trades harsh words with Mr. Blue, who takes it all in with cool deference. Mr. Grey is more a foil for Mr. Blue than Lt. Garber is, as Mr. Grey is an ever-present force aboard the train. Earl Hindman's Mr. Brown is given little screentime, but it is established that he and Mr. Blue are friends of some sort; that's about all the backstory we get on the guy. Martin Balsam's Mr. Green has a surprisingly large role, and one that has a pretty amusing payoff (which I won't ruin here); he is the one conscientious hijacker, not really wanting to hurt anyone, and his involvement stems from a drug bust in which he got caught and wants revenge on the Transit Authroity (he used to work as a motorman and knows how to operate a subway car).
The hostages are a bag of caricatures. the credits describe them simply as The Pimp, The Old Jew, Mother and Kids, The Homosexual, etc. etc. Everywhere throughout the movie are hints of a conservative society that was changing drastically: Lt. Darber and his coworkers often whine about letting women into the workforce; Lt. Darber makes pseudoracist remarks to the Chinese businessmen he believes don't understand him; Lee Wallace, as the mayor, is unliked by the citizens, and often weighs saving the hostages against losing the election; the homosexual in question is dressed like he came from a Stonewall Inn anniversary parade. It was 1974 New York in all its glory: fuck being PC, PC doesn't exist, and even if it did this is New York City with Walter Matthau as its star. He and the rest of the characters can say exactly what's on their minds because, you know what? That adds to their character. That gives them depth. Stop pussyfooting around and say what the fuck you want, even some people are offended. You're a character in a movie.
Director Joseph Sargant jumps directly into the action, tossing the audience into the plot without explaining anything and letting the audience slowly get to know the characters, their motives, and what's at stake (like any good director should. All this bullshit about knowing everything about a character, about where they came from, what their childhood was like, and whether their mothers hugged them is bullshit, boring, and takes away from the mysitque). The pace slows in the second, but once the mayor agrees to pay and the race is on to get the money from Chamber St. to the 18th St. station in less than 4 minutes things really pick up. Everything is played light and fun, exactly the way a good heist movie should be: the key isn't the payoff, but the coming together of every element, the escalation of suspense. Watching a genius at work is more exciting than watching the aftermath of their struggle, and here Robert Shaw is a genius.
Another genuis move is the score by David Shire. His score incorporates extensive use of percussion and trumpets, creating a motown-influsenced jazz score that reverberates like a heartbeat. The score is listenable apart from the film, although, unfortunately, it isn't used as extensively as I would've liked. After seeing the film I'm curious to find David Shire's other works to see if they hold up.
The film is a good heist movie, a lot of fun, and is a great showcase of 1970's New York, a New York that no longer exists as it's been Disneyfied and cleaned up and glamourized in the past two decades. Whether it's better or worse depends on who you're asking, as well as what part of New York you're referring. But the film isn't without its flaws as well: the payoff, which was hinted at for at least an hour throughout the movie is not nearly as exciting as it seemed. The second act slows down considerably, and some of the motivations for the police seem unexplained (they concede to Lt. Garber's decisions at nearly every turn without debate). The plainclothes policeman onboard the train is alluded to every 12 minutes, but when it comes time for him (or her) to get to the action, his (or her) actions seem somehow anticlimatic. Finally, all the blatant sexism, racism, and uncouth behavior, while interesting and fun to watch, doesn't hold up wel lat all in today's PC world.
This is a good movie, very fun, funny, with some great car stuntwork by Joie Chitwood and his team (who did the enjoyable-to-amazing car stunts for the James Bond films from 1971 to 1974), a great jazz score, and fun performances by Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. Perhaps the upcoming remake (on which I worked) will improve on some of the pacing problems, but I fear a lot of the un-PC behavior, which made the characters more interesting, will be lost and Lt. Garber's role will be made to be much more active (with Denzel Washington in the role, that is almost guaranteed). And unless they change the whole "big twist", it'll be gravely anticlimactic.
I'm sure I'll pick this up once the inevitable special edition comes out to coincide the release of the remake this summer.

Wake Up Call, my newest film, will be done, completely by the end of this week. I decree it.