The Taking of Pelham 123

Rating

: * * *

Verdict

:

Big, loud, dumb and furiously entertaining.

As a police car, with a dozen-motorcycle escort races through the mean streets of New York to deliver $10 million to the bad guys before hostages start dying at the rate of one a minute, the mayor (Gandolfini) asks a valid question. "Why didn't we use a helicopter to deliver the money?"

He's greeted with a slightly sheepish silence and the plot careers on. But the answer is this: "You're in a Tony Scott film, Jimmy. Sirens must wail. Cars must be destroyed." Damn. Now I've given away the plot.

This is a remake of a classy 1974 drama with which it has been disobligingly compared, but the films have little in common apart from the basic premise. The original (with the incomparable Walter Matthau as a dishevelled cop and an icy Robert Shaw as the bad guy) let two great actors at the top of their game loose on a script so sassy and assured that its punchline was a sneeze and a raised eyebrow. If you haven't seen it, you should.

And you should see Scott's version too if you enjoyed

Top Gun, Enemy of the State

and

Man on Fire.

In the director's trademark style, it delivers: it's big and loud and dumb and who cares if there's not a subtle touch in it?

Travolta plays the leader of a small group of thugs who hold a subway car and its passengers hostage. The incident takes place on the watch of dispatcher Walter Garber (Washington), who already has a few problems at work, and from the moment they start talking on the radio their lives are on a collision course.

The script by Brian Helgeland (

LA Confidential, Mystic River

) has a few good touches, in particular the edgy scenes between Washington and Turturro, a smooth, smug hostage negotiator, but mostly it's just a framework to hang the action on. Washington is, as always, a pleasure to watch, but Travolta's giggling loon of a villain is neither scary nor charming.

And in the clumsy, formulaic ending the film really loses it. You just long for that shot when Matthau opens Martin Balsam's apartment door. But that would have been witty and smart. And, as Gandolfini knows, Scott doesn't do smart.

Peter Calder

Cast

: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, James Gandolfini, John Turturro, Luis Guzman

Director

: Tony Scott

Running time:

121 mins

Rating

: R16 (contains violence, offensive language)