The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

I never saw the remake with Travolta and Washington, and not for any real good reason, of course. Perhaps it looked like another one of Denzel's generic "action" pieces. The original is on Netflix, and with the proper alignment of the stars and planets, I immediately put it on. I've always been a bit prejudiced against older films: they lack a certain sheen that newer movies have. A certain bit of processing that may or may not be a good thing. But, I've been taking in some older films over the past year or so, and have been pleasantly surprised.

Pelham is no slouch, and I'm impressed with the movie on all levels. I've mentioned it before but it's worth mentioning again: the characters, sets and writing all feel "lived in." That is to say, it really feels like they just set up a camera in an actual control centre and subway tunnel and just let the film fly. Round it out with believable characters: there's not a single attractive person to be seen here. I was recently listening to an audio commentary from Doug Limen on The Bourne Identity and he mentioned one of the director's assistant's duties: to make the world believable. This involves directing extras, ensuring there is traffic on the streets and basically presenting us with a world that we find believable, so we don't immediately think we're looking at a set. I think this practice has been lost over the years, as these old movies seem to nail it perfectly.

Walter Matthau is fantastic, bringing a wry sense of humour to his role that drives the film.

The end of the movie is brilliant. The bad guys know the end is up and there is no big reveal. They don't have a backup plan. In today's movies they have backups to backups to backups, and false endings abound aplenty. Not here: the bad guys lose and the good guys do what they must. Life moves on, and this is driven home during the movie as some characters want to get the train system going again at any cost: are the lives of 20 people worth shutting down the entire subway system in New York for a couple of hours? Clearly, they are, but the question has be put out there.

The crew of hijackers come in disguise and refer to themselves as Mr. Colour. Yes, just like Reservoir Dogs, we have Mr. Brown, Mr. Blue, etc. For some reason I thought it was an invention of Tarantino, but alas, it's another nod to classic and great films of the past.

Also, why are the numerals in the remake's title shortened down to digits? I've always been a fan of the actual words themselves.

And finally, the music is fantastic. If the intro notes don't pull you into the movie, I'm not sure what will.