The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Okay, so the generation behind me has Michael “Transformers” Bay for smoking, sweating machismo cinema, but Tony Scott is still the best in the genre. Since hitting it big with Simpson-Bruckheimer with thrill rides like “Top Gun,” “Beverly Hills Cop II,” and “Crimson Tide,” Scott- whose brother is another master of macho filmmaking, Ridley- has pumped high levels of testosterone into the atmosphere with films as diverse as “The Last Boy Scout,” “True Romance” (his best to date, thanks to a Quentin Tarantino script that pops), and- most recently- “Enemy of the State” and “Deja Vu,” although his 2004 collaboration with Denzel Washington “Man on Fire” has its’ defenders (I’m not one of them; it started great, then got less interesting).
“The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3” has Scott in top form, bringing vigor and grit to the screenplay by “L.A. Confidential’s” Brian Helgeland that gives Denzel and John Travolta two of the meatiest roles of their career. Washington plays Walter Garber, an MTA worker whose professional problems has landed his as the train dispatcher on duty when Travolta’s Ryder leads a team to hijack the 1:23 train from the Pelham Bay terminal. His goal is to get the mayor of New York (the great James Gandolfini) to pay up $10 million for the 18 hostages he has on board, but we soon figure out there might be more to this than meets the eye.
But that’s all you’ll get out of me for plot- Scott keeps the film crackling with tension weighted down in character for a breathtaking two hours, letting Washington and Travolta basically go off one another like master musicians sharing the stage. True, every third word out of Travolta’s mouth is motherf#@&er, but nobody said Helgeland’s script was art, even if it is an artful adaptation of the book by John Godey that inspired a 1974 film of the same name, with Walter Matthau in the Washington role. Yes, Denzel’s name in this version is homage to the late, great Matthau. You can’t do better than Denzel in replacing an actor for a reboot.
Travolta is in peak form. He hasn’t really played a bad guy since “Broken Arrow” and “Face/Off,” and he hasn’t missed a step. Like his character in “Broken Arrow,” Ryder has a grudge with the government. I’ll let the film get to the why, as well as the why as to why Ryder feels a kinship with Walter more than negotiator Camonetti, a PD man played with bravado and sensitivity by John Turturro. Scott keeps the verbal sparring at the center of the film, even when Tobias Schliessler’s cinematography gets dizzying, and Chris Lebenzon’s editing gets a little frentic. The ending gets more into action film territory, but it’s still the dueling personalities between Washington and Travolta that drives the excitement. Just another step away from the failure of “Domino” for a director who can get masculine rocks off through action and acting. Get ready for another wild ride.
