Underground overhaul

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Remake’s compelling performances assure audiences won’t sleep in the subway. (STEPHEN VAUGHAN)

BAD  news for this remake: the original version of  The Taking of Pelham 123  was a perfectly good  movie, released in 1974 during the Golden Age of New York crime movies. (See also:  The French Con­nection, Mean Streets  and  Dog Day Afternoon.) 

But as good as it was, director Joseph Sargent's suspense thriller never achieved the exalted rank of the other classics. Its undeserved status as a lesser entity has led to two remakes, including an obscure TV movie version starring Donnie Wahlberg and Vincent D'Onofrio and now this big-budget film from director Tony Scott.

The original, which starred Walter Matthau as a deceptively resourceful transit cop, had an ambience as tough, dark and slick as one of Al Pacino's black leather Serpico coats.

This new iteration alters the tone by placing the story in a post-9/11 New York City. In that context, the original story's criminal act -- the hijacking of a subway train -- has the wince-inducing effect of forcefully pressing a thumb on a bruise.

Led by a mood-swinging psychopath who sardonically dubs himself Ryder (John Travolta), the team of hijackers steal the titular train, sending most of the cars back to the station. Inhabiting a single subway car and parking on a subterranean upgrade beneath Manhattan, they make their intentions known -- if they don't receive $10 million in one hour, they will kill a passenger every minute over the deadline.

Unfortunately for subway dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington), he happens to be on the other end of the radio when Ryder makes his demands. The two men establish sufficient rapport that Ryder insists on communicating solely with Garber, sidelining a professional hostage negotiator (John Turturro) to the role of adviser.

Ryder learns that Garber is himself tainted by a whiff of criminality. Formerly a honcho in the Manhattan transit hierarchy, he was brought down by suspicions of taking a bribe.

Ryder, a man with a persecution complex against New York City, sees Garber as a kindred spirit.

In Ryder, Garber sees a means to redeem himself.

As the key scriptwriter of L.A. Confidential, Brian Helgeland demonstrated a talent for getting under the skin of tough-guy characters, and he employs that talent to good use here. Travolta, given his best screen role in years, offers a different take on the villain, playing Ryder as a bipolar diva, furious, arrogant and crafty, seeing himself as a martyr/mastermind.

While Washington has been known to play a pretty good villain himself (see Training Day), he calibrates his performance to complement Travolta's. That makes his Garber the opposite of Matthau's unflappable cop in the original film. He's rattled, emotional, and his resources stay hidden.

Their performances are the bedrock of the movie, and Scott knows it, accommodating the stars with restraint.

Sure, the director breaks out his whole arsenal of tricks, fast motion, smash cuts and a pummelling soundtrack. But compared with the other high-tech digital whammo-scalammo we're seeing in summer movies, Scott's style, once deemed cutting-edge, now has the whiff of old school.

And to give credit where it's due, Scott demonstrates he has enough sense to let his actors do their thing.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 12, 2009 D1