Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

An Exercise In Nonsense

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

You have to watch the original one first (1974). It has Walter Matthau (Odd Couple) and Robert Shaw (Jaws). The remake with Travolta and Washington is so awful I did everything in my power from hitting fast forward. First, the other brothers in crime were useless and weren't needed outside of one guy to hold off the crowd. The secondary players don't have that New York feel like they did in the original. Travolta kept on calling Turturro "greasball." I get it, his character has an Italian last name, but all the time. Shows me they (director & writer are weak). In the old one there were no hero's. First Washington starts off as an every man, then he is traversing the tunnels and coming up from the grates (I don't know how he did that) to just happen to see Travolta getting in a cab 25 feet away with his share. Then he hijacks a vehicle and is able to follow him after Travolta has a 5 or 6 block head start in midtown Manhattan, really. The every man isn't chasing down a killer for the cities money, but Washington just turned hero and special agent, thus, chase on, ludicrous. The old movie used cunning and misdirection and tension and the gritty streets of NYC. They had a plan to getaway and stay away, but there was one wrench I won't give away here. This movie has an overrated Washington doing a job anyone that acts can do and Travolta, yelling and screaming, oy vey. Forget this movie and watch the original. For a comparison, I really can't think, but this movie is the worst slasher flick and the original is the Godfather. SEE THE ORIGINAL NOT THIS ONE. GOOD THING I DIDN'T PAY TO SEE IT.

If you've seen more than one Tony Scott film than you all ready know the drill: Fast pace photography set to either rock in roll music or a Harry Gregson-Williams score (his 7th Scott film). The Taking of Pelham 123 is no exception, it mixes just the right amount of both rock in roll music and a film score with that stylized Tony Scott pacing. In this remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, Denzel Washington re- teams with Scott for the fourth time as a MTA dispatcher who is thrust into a hostage negotiation situation as John Travolta has high jacked a New York City subway train and demands $10 Million in one hour. The bulk of the movie is the performance of Travolta and Washington batting it out over the radio. It is a cross between the tensions from Crimson Tide with the buddy cop friendship from Die Hard. The depth of the story all but ends on this one idea, the hijacking, then bring in James Gandolfini (his 3rd Scott film) and John Turturro to help with the tension in the story.The weakest aspect of this film is the lack of sophistication and ingenuity surrounding the heist itself. This isn't like The Inside Man, where the hostage takers are constantly one step ahead of the police. Travolta's character is a cross between his characters in Swordfish and Pulp Fiction, only with a little more crank and steroids.This helps give the film the edge that other heist films lack, and is actually the strongest aspect of this movie. Travolta doesn't just threaten to kill hostages, he kills hostages. His plan doesn't consist of a Plan B, because Plan B is reinforcing Plan A; which is killing hostages. Travolta's character is dangerous and on the edge, just enough where we need him to be to keep the suspense alive. Denzel Washington's character isn't a police officer or a hostage negotiator. He's just another guy, stuck in an extraordinary circumstance.This movie is fast, hard hitting, and on the edge. Every gun shot, car crash, and even the dialogue is like a punch in the stomach. What is refreshing about this film is that it doesn't rely on special computer effects to entertain. It has classically good film making that is still suspenseful and hard hitting. And has just enough high jacking to echo the past events in New York, but not so much to take from the fact that it is just a movie. Really, just another Tony Scott roller coaster, but it is hard not to love it!

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 is Tony Scott's flashy and expensive remake of a stone-cold classic of 1970s cinema. The original had Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw as hero and villain respectively, while this remake sees Scott regular Denzel Washington and bad-guy-for-hire John Travolta stepping into those lofty shoes. And, unsurprisingly enough, this turns out to be a redundant remake that can't hope to better - or, indeed, even come close - to the quality of the original.I'm not a hater of remakes per se. Occasionally certain films will be flawed or dated and the remake works better than the original; I found this with THE HILLS HAVE EYES. However, the original PELHAM is a great film and anyone who's seen it will end up just watching this version and criticising it by comparison. I'm sure if the original didn't exist I would have enjoyed the updated PELHAM a lot more, but as it stands it's a waste of time.It's not all bad. Washington is the slick master of professionalism as always and never disappoints this viewer. Travolta gives another fun villainous turn, following on from FACE/OFF and BROKEN ARROW. Scott certainly knows how to make a fast-paced movie and this is a thriller that's never dull. But compared to the original, it's vapid, shallow, and way too superficial.

Just to clear the air: I read the novel before seeing the 1974 version, and found it unfocused and therefore uninteresting. As for the 1974 movie, it was okay but not a flick I ever warmed to. I'm all for remakes from novels, especially when the first versions were dogs.So I came into this "The Taking of Pelham 123" without any prejudices against it.Touted as a post-9/11 version of the story, I was interested in seeing the changes made to the story. It was nicely updated, as it had to be. But I had no sense of characters, only types. In the novel, in the first movie, as poor as they were, they at least had passengers stand out as people, and therefore one could feel for their situations. Not here. And the first movie had actors like Martin Balsam and Robert Shaw, capable of investing their slight roles with characterizations that stood out even in their disguises.The strangest change is in the main characters. Rather than mere cops-and-robbers fare (as in the book and the 1974 movie, where Walter Matthau was the cop tracking down the bad guys who are willing to kill innocents for money, the "good guy" (Denzel Washington) is some sort of dispatcher (not being a New Yorker and never having ridden on a subway, I don't know the proper terminology). And the script, and the characters, keep blurring the lines between the "good guy" and the "bad guy." But whereas Robert Shaw in the original movie (I don't remember what he was in the book) was a mercenary soldier who teamed with a disgruntled and unfairly fired transit. And here is where it gets interesting. The movie makers raised the point of 9/11. On 9/11 New York and Washington were bombed by extremist Islamic terrorists, killing innocents in two cities who had done no worse crime than going to work in the morning. In this version of "Pelham" the lead baddie, who takes over the train and threatens to kill, is a Catholic, who likes to debate a perverted version of Original Sin. He's so philosophic you'd think he'd have boned up on it and got it right (I wonder how Travolta would have liked it if the lead terrorist had been a Scientologist debating a twisted notion of what L. Ron Hubbard said).Not only is the bad guy Catholic, he's also no longer a soldier of fortune teamed up with a disgruntled former worker. The worker unfairly fired by the government is no longer an important part of the story. The leader is a former Wall Street investing bigwig who did time and who is cleverly manipulating the stock market.While protesting that the update is a post 9/11 take on the story Hollywood has managed to plug in their bigotries (Christians, Wall Street types, etc.). Though no expert on the matter, I'm not even sure a devout Christian would be a Wall Street type at all, much less a dishonest one. The whole thing makes sense only in Hollywood.Or in New York, apparently. Living out in the wholesome, fresh-aired, clean countryside I don't enjoy "gritty city" movies. It's hardly an advertisement for New York and it only makes anyone dwelling on the other side of the George Washington Bridge wonder why folks want to live in such a hellhole.