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Released by: Sony
Released on: 11/3/2009
Director: Tony Scott
Cast: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Luis Guzman, John Turturro, James Gandalfini
Year: 2009
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The Movie:
Most remakes suck, but not all. Just keep repeating that to yourself until you start to believe it, and then give Tony Scott's 2009 remake of The Taking Of Pelham 123 a shot, because you know what? It doesn't suck. Honest.
The premise is a very simple one - a New York City transit work named Walter Garber (Denzel Washington), who is under investigation for taking a bribe, gets demoted to working the switchboard for the Lexington Ave. subway line. On the same day, a man named Ryder (John Travolta) and a few of his cronies (one of whom is Luis Guzman), decide to separate one subway car from the rest of the Manhattan 6 train that's carrying it and holds the subway riders hostage for the tune of ten million dollars. Ryder initially speaks to Gerber and takes a liking to him, requesting that he contact the mayor (well played by James Gandolfini) immediately as once an hour passes, if he doesn't have his money, he's going to start shooting hostages.
A hostage negotiator named Camonetti (John Turturro) is brought in but Ryder wants nothing to do with him, he proves this by shooting the subway driver point blank. With the clock ticking, Garber is forced to play ball with Ryder while the cops move a S.W.A.T. team into the tunnels underneath 42nd Street. But Ryder's smarter than the cops realize and time is moving very, very quickly…
You wouldn't think a film that spends so much of its running time in a subway car and in a train dispatch office could be so tense but Tony Scott really handles things quite well here, allowing the film to build to an intense and fairly action packed conclusion without feeling rushed or out of place. The film almost takes place in real time, so like the Fox series 24, we're brought along for the ride as the clock ticks down, which is a pretty effective way to keep an audience involved but there's more to it than just that. The film allows us to get to know Garber and Ryder through their conversations over the subway intercom system and by making them interesting to us and letting us get to know a bit about them, the film itself becomes more involving.
As stated, it all builds to a pretty great conclusion and while the ending won't surprise anyone, getting there is fun. Scott's flair for action scenes is in full swing by the last half hour of the picture, with some killer stunt work and a couple of good shoot outs thrown in. The bulk of the film's success comes from the acting, however. Washington is excellent in his role as the flawed but entirely human and sympathetic Garber, while Travolta brings his typical sassy cockiness to Ryder which makes him a pretty classic and hissworthy villain. Throw in some very worthy supporting work from Turturro and especially Gandolfini and you can see how the cast really help to elevate what is at its core an incredibly basic (if ultimately quite effective) storyline.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Taking Of Pelham 123 looks great in its original 2.40.1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio, presented here in a AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer. The colors look nice and natural here and despite some quirky CGI noticeable only in a few brief moments the visual works really well. Skin tones look pretty good, never too orange or too pink, and black levels are strong throughout, which is very important to the movie when it's taking place in the subway tunnels. There's way more texture to the image here than there ever could be on standard definition and the color reproduction is considerably more impressive as well. Though many scenes seem to have a slight (and obviously intentional) blue/green tint to them that actually really helps to add to the atmosphere of it all. Fans of the film should be very pleased with Sony's efforts here, as this is a well authored representation of what had to be some very clean source material.
An excellent English 48kHz 1.5 Mbps DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix adorns this Blu-ray release, as do DTS-HD 5.1 tracks in French and Castilian Spanish. English closed captioning is available as are optional French, Portuguese and Spanish subtitles. The DTS-HD track on this disc is excellent. There's plenty of aggressive channel separation during some of the more action-oriented moments in the film. The car chase scenes and the shoots outs have plenty of audible commotion and effects bits whizzing around your room. Quieter moments use the rears to add ambience in the form of natural room sounds and background noise and by spreading the score out nicely - you'll notice this in the scenes where Garber is in the control room. Dialogue is clean, clear and concise even during the commotion of the action scenes and the musical score and sound effects never overshadow what's being said on screen. Bass response is terrific and the mix will give your subwoofer something to chew on, especially during the last half hour of the film where the action picks up. In short, the sound mix is great.
The first of two commentary tracks comes courtesy of the always interesting Tony Scott, who speaks about remaking the original film and what he was trying to do with this revamped version. Scott's good at giving credit where credit is due, lauding Helgeland for turning in a tight script and expressing admiration for the actors he worked with while filling us in on the trials and tribulations of shooting on location in New York City. A second commentary track puts Brian Helgeland behind the mic with producer Todd Black for a talk that covers how this project came to be, what it was like working with Scott, and about the scripting process. Between the two tracks you get a pretty good feel for what went into getting this project up and running and for how it was finished.
From there, check out the four featurettes that are included here, the first of which is No Time To Lose: The Making Of Pelham 123, a half hour look at the research that went into assuring this film was grounded in reality as often as possible and how the movie wound up at Sony in addition to bringing Scott on board and casting the picture. It's an interesting piece that's complimented nicely by The Third Rail: New York Underground which is a sixteen minute documentary that shows us what it was like for the cast and crew when they were shooting the scenes that take place inside actual New York City subway tunnels. From The Top Down: Stylizing Character is the only standard definition extra and this five minute piece about hairstyles is also the least interesting - yeah, it's about haircuts. The fourth and final featurette, Marketing Pelham, is really just essentially seven minutes worth of trailers and promo spots for the film.
Also included here is some Blu-ray live capability, animated menus and chapter selection. The Blu-ray also comes with a standard definition digital copy of the movie.
The Final Word:
The simple premise just works really well here, resulting in a tense film with some great action and fine acting from the two leads. Sony's Blu-ray release looks and sounds terrific and contains some pretty decent extras features as well, making this one of those rare remakes that doesn't stink, in fact, it's pretty damn good.