"Take your earplugs."
Take your earplugs to “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. Director Tony Scott presents
us with a deafening cacophony of urban noise that starts in the first scene. The
cumulative effect is to reduce the audience to a collective nervous wreck. While
the subway drama unfolds below ground, Scott unfurls the above ground reaction
to the taking of a train full of hostages. This consists primarily of police
cars, taxis, motorcycles, and helicopters – all with screaming sirens, horns,
and the requisite shattering of glass. Then Scott amplifies the volume to a
nearly earsplitting level while we sit trapped in our seats.
But hold on;
things do improve. The noise and peripheral characters could be dispensed with
altogether because the movie focuses entirely on two good thriller performances
by Denzel Washington and John Travolta. Facing off against the killer’s
countdown clock, both men are caught up in a battle of words and psychology;
nothing more is needed.
Ryder (John Travolta) commandeers Pelham 1 2 3 (a subway to Pelham that leaves
every day at 1:23), cuts loose all cars and passengers but one, and initiates a
call to Garver (Denzel Washington), a dispatcher in the bowels of the MTA. He
demands one million dollars and a conversation with the mayor. Deadline: one
hour. Chaos reigns above ground while below, two men bargain for the lives of
the passengers.
Ryder, it
turns out, has a past in business that puts him squarely in the contemporary
world of Wall Street scandal. Can he get away with a million dollars and make it
work for him while he’s pulling off this heist? What a deal that would be; but
he has exacted too big a price for his capital. This man is a demented sicko who
is perfectly willing to shoot anyone who annoys him. As for the rest, he will
kill one passenger each minute after the deadline passes. Meanwhile, he gets to
know Garber.
As for
Garber, he was a glass office man at the MTA until he was accused of skimming
bribe money on a business trip to Japan to choose a new model train. Is he
guilty? The shadow alone is enough to make Garber vulnerable. Deliberately
subduing his natural presence, Denzel Washington is thoroughly credible as a
motorman who worked his way up to the front office. So we have a standoff phone
conversation between two actors who are so talented that they relegate all the
other players, even James Goldofini’s fatuous mayor, to the warm-up pen. A mom
and her small son grab our attention but their story line is dropped.
Though this
is a movie wrapped in crisis and mayhem, the only thing we really see is a
prolonged conversation between two adversaries, each trying to win a deadly
game. The mayhem is merely window dressing for the interaction between John
Travolta and Denzel Washington, and for their fans, that’s enough.
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