The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

It has been a few weeks since The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 was released and I still don’t have a strong opinion about it.  Ranking it within the Tony Scott/Denzel Washington library it falls behind Man on Fire but ahead of Déjà vu, why do exist Deja Vu?  And it is clearly not Crimson Tide.  I have no problem with remakes but it serves no purpose when the new film is worse than the original.

I’m unsure where Fat Denzel came from since Walter Matthau was just Walter Matthau in the original, but I applaud any actor going with dumpy as a way to define their character.  Besides the weight, there was nothing memorable about the usual solid Denzel performance.  On the other hand, John Travolta goes with his favorite style … complete evil cartoon.  Maybe he realized that Robert Shaw was one of the greatest villains of all-time because he was so clam and terrifying.  Whatever the reason, Travolta was off the meter and I can only take so much of it.  It is always nice to see Turturro, Gandolfini, and Guzman even if none of them get enough screentime to really affect things.  And that would never have happened to Chris if Snoop was riding the train with him.

It’s always nice when a movie confirms its R rating by dropping about 5 f-bombs in the first conversation.  That wasn’t the only part of the story that stopped me in my tracks.  There was the ridiculous girlfriend on the webcam demanding an “I love you” from her boyfriend while he is being held hostage.  Worse was the scene where Mayor Soprano runs out of the Transit office to head to Wall Street to stop Travolta then nothing ever happens and this is never brought up again.  And of course the ending is just awful.  There is no better way to ruin an action-thriller like this then completely shitting the bed at the climax.  I couldn't even concentrate at the end because I was blown away at how nothing made sense.

If I were to forced to define The Taking of the Pelham 1 2 3, it would be called a great movie to have playing in the background when it shows up on TNT.  There are a million movies in that genre.  While it was never boring, it was also completely forgettable.  Not much of a summer movie either.

7 out of 10