The New York City Subway: Grown Up And Remade
A year before going on a shark hunt, Robert Shaw took a few hostages on a skeezy New York subway. If only Charles Bronson had been on that subway to stop him.
A year before going on a shark hunt, Robert Shaw took a few hostages on a skeezy New York subway. If only Charles Bronson had been on that subway to stop him.
In 2009, John Travolta pulls a hostage act also, only this time the subway is fairly safe, fairly clean and sans graffiti.
In 2009, John Travolta pulls a hostage act also, only this time the subway is fairly safe, fairly clean and sans graffiti.
The Taking of Pelham 123, the latest big-budget thriller by director Tony Scott, is a remake of a classic from 1974. In the new film, Denzel Washington and John Travolta are the A-list celebrities who play the leads.
But Pelham's biggest star goes unbilled: the New York City subway system, where Travolta's character takes a car full of hostages.
A ride on New York's subway today is a very different experience from 1974. The first film came at a moment when the city was on the verge of bankruptcy, its infrastructure crumbling.
The subway had a reputation for being filled with crime and graffiti in those days — though graffiti was conspicuously absent from the 1974 film.
The subways did start to improve, through attention to what are now called "quality-of-life issues." The NYPD now handles security, and the transit command center is state of the art.
Even the subway cars are smarter and more efficient. In both movies, as part of their plan the hijackers disconnected a car and drove it away from the rest of the train.
They could have done that in the '70s, but the modern operational systems would never allow it today.
'Pelham' Redux: Trouble On The Tracks Once Again
Trouble On The 6 Train: John Travolta plays a charismatic, fast-talking hijacker in this remake of a 1974 subway-hostage thriller.
Trouble On The 6 Train: John Travolta plays a charismatic, fast-talking hijacker in this remake of a 1974 subway-hostage thriller.
The N.Y. Subway, Then And Now
The Taking of Pelham 123
- Director: Tony Scott
- Genre: Action and thriller
- Running Time: 121 minutes
Rated R: Violence and pervasive language
With: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, John Turturro, James Gandolfini
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A Hard Day's Work: Reprising Walter Matthau's role in the original, Denzel Washington stars as a subway dispatcher who gets dragged into negotiations to save the hostages.
A Hard Day's Work: Reprising Walter Matthau's role in the original, Denzel Washington stars as a subway dispatcher who gets dragged into negotiations to save the hostages.
Tony Scott is one director who knows how to make the trains run on time.
I don't just mean the specific New York subway cars of his efficient new thriller The Taking of Pelham 123, of course. Scott — the director of Spy Game, Days of Thunder and The Last Boy Scout, among others — has always been good at running the metaphorical trains of his action-movie world.
If the title of Scott's latest adventure sounds familiar, you've got a good memory: Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw starred in the original, back in 1974.
For the remake, Scott starts this subway hostage drama with a rush, with John Travolta's evil kidnapper talking to Denzel Washington's subway dispatcher.
"Who is this?" Washington asks.
"This is the man who's gonna rock the city," Travolta cackles, before he passes the radio to a motorman — the train's driver, though he's not driving anymore — who confirms that the bad guy's claims are backed up by a machine gun-wielding heavy or three.
Because this is a hostage drama, screenwriter Brian Helgeland had to rely on the tension created by words, specifically the back-and-forth of ransom negotiations for 19 passengers and crew.
So it's a good thing that Travolta and Washington have enough charisma to hold our attention, even though their only contact is over an intercom.
The third star of this film is the venerable New York City subway system itself, and that's as it should be. The Pelham crew filmed on the subway for four weeks, the most extensive shoot there ever, and the result is exceptionally convincing.
Pelham isn't perfect. It has its share of clunky plot elements, and it relies on an ungodly amount of coincidence.
But the film does what a good hostage negotiator does: It distracts us from what's going wrong and pulls us into the story.
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