The Taking of Pelham 123: A Review

I just returned from seeing the new updated version of The Taking of Pelham 123 which has always been one of my favorite movies. The original starred Robert Shaw as a hijacker with a group of gun toting men who hijack a NYC subway car and hold it for ransom with passengers for 1 million dollars. Walter Matthau is the NYC Transit Authority Lieutenant who takes the call and keeps in contact with Shaw as he figures a way out of the situation. This new version has John Travolta as the hijacker with a band of colorless henchmen and Denzel Washington in the Walter Matthau role only insteads of being a transit authority cop he's a dispatcher who just happens to pick up the call from Travolta.

I thought this new version was well done, but lacks the humor and sharp wit and stinging New York attitude that was so prevalent in the first one. I also thought Travolta was good, but too excitable and maniacal most of the time compared to Shaw's cool, calm, calculating, always in charge demeanor. In the orginal when Matthau asks Shaw,"Who is this?" Shaw replies, "I'm the man who stole your train." Here when Denzel askes Travolta "Who is this?" Travolta goes into a rant saying 'look at your board. Don't you see what I've done?" It just wasn't the same effect for me. Also his band of henchmen were just colorless figures toting submachine guns whereas Shaw's gang were colorful parties with personalities we got into. There was Hector Elizondo as the crazy, nerve twitching gunman who was a former transit worker, Martin Balsam as the former subway motorman who was reluctant to go along with the plan and Earl Hindman (who later played Wilson on Home Improvement). Even the passengers had more personality than these passengers.
In the original, Shaw is a former English mercenary soldier looking to make a cool million thru hijacking a subway train with a well thought out plan. Travolta's hijacker is a former wall street guy who ciphoned money from the city's pension system and went to jail for it. The money was never fully recovered and he decides to hijack a train and ask for 20 million to drive stock prices down and send gold prices up which he'll invest in. John Turturro is an excelllent no nonsense hostage negotiator and James Gandolfini as a Guiliani type mayor of NYC. The press even askes him about his divorce which annoys him. There is also an excellent car chase with Denzel after Travolta in a stolen taxi cab reminiscent of the famous car chase in the French Connection. Over all it's not a bad movie and good entertainment and the connection between Denzel and Travolta is intriguing, however it would have been a better movie had there been no original.