Well, you expect a flick with these two lead actors, not to mention a hefty supporting cast, to be pretty good and entertaining, and it is. I just don't that The Taking of Pelham 123 is going to meet your expectations because, I guessing you're like me and had very, very lofty expectations. Maybe a little too high.
The story is pretty straight forward, a fast talking and borderline psychotic mastermind who calls himself Ryder (John Travolta Pulp Fiction) and his group of henchmen (most prominently featuring Luis Guzman Q & A ) aggressively take control of an NYC subway train with the designation, as you might guess, of Pelham 1-2-3. The hold it and the passengers hostage, demanding 10 million in ransom within the hour. The thing is, they first guy the get on the line, again as you might guess, is the subway controller, Garber (Denzel Washington The Pelican Brief) . But, Ryder is so impressed with Garver that he insists on speaking only with him during the negotiations, much to the chagrin of the lead detective on the case (John Turturro Secret Window) as well as ultimately some of the passengers.
With the lives of so many at stake and do little time-1 hour- to satisfy the demands given by Ryder the action and adrenaline getx pumping pretty fast. I thought the film did a pretty good job of injecting realism into the story: we have one of the hostages streaming the whole thing live to his girlfriend from his laptop, and when the mayor (James Gandolfini Get Shorty) is called in we see that he has the human flaws we all know powerful politicians have, but for the most part they pretend they don't, expemplified by the mayor's self assessment, "Rudy Guliani I ain't."
I refuse to be a spoiler, but I will tell you that the hijacking is not just what it appears to be from the outset, but the 'twist' is nothing to write home about, let's just say the fairly unpopular financial community takes one on the chin again.
To me, what makes Pelman 123 work to the extent it does is simply, the performance of the actors. Denzel is good in his familiar role as the good guy we all love to love, and Travolta is very good as the psychopathic criminal that, despite our best nature, we kind of like. I know we've seen John as a bad guy before, but not like this, he's really unhinged and it works, in my opinion, adding yet another layer to the depth of this great actor.
I also have to give a special shout out to Gandolfini, an actor of immense talent who will, fairly or not, always be Tony Soprano to many of us, in a role about as far from Tony (save some allegations of philandering) as you can get.
I don't have too much in the negative to say about the flick, other than it struck me as unlikely that criminals who had such a sophisticated plan for taking the subway would have such an ordinary 'get away' plan. I guess its like the New York Yankees in baseball. When you have the type of lineup they have, anything less than a World Series victory is disappointing, being merely good is an abject failure. Not fair or entirely logical, but true nevertheless. So, if I can stick with the baseball analogy, Pelham 123 has a lineup that makes you expect World Series win, but I think all you get is making the playoffs, which is good, but I think for some, won't be quite good enough.
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