THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 (2009, Blu-ray released November 3, 2009 – MSRP $39.95)
My god, those Scott brothers have got style! Both Ridley and younger brother Tony came up to the world of feature filmmaking from advertising. They know how to be slick. They know how to sell a product. But where the former took the route of the auteur, crafting genre films like Alien and Blade Runner for the thinking-person or art student, the latter used his craft in the camera filter and the quick-cut to bring some of the most visceral action films of the last thirty years to the big screen. It’s this skill that makes Tony Scott‘s re-think of The Taking of Pelham 123 so much more than the tense over-the-radio chat of the original. It’s elevated to a beautifully shot, frenetically paced thrill ride. And for the most part, it works.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, adapted in 1974 from the novel of the same name by John Godey, starred Walter Mathau and Robert Shaw and was directed by Joseph Sargent. It always felt like one of those 70s disaster movie that I avoided like the plague – The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, Airplane – you know the ones. I know, this is more of a hijack picture. But for some reason, it never appealed to me. I never felt like checking it out. Cue 2009 and Tony Scott brings the slick. Maybe it’s his direction. Maybe it’s the photography or the editing. Or maybe it’s just the awesomeness that is Denzel Washington. But this version of the film immediately feels exciting! It starts like a music video and thrusts you quickly into the harried day of Washington’s Walter Garber, lowly GTA dispatcher caught up in train hijacker “Ryder’s” (John Travolta) scheme. If Garber doesn’t play his cards right, the terrorists are going to kill a trainload of passengers. Oh boy! Talk about tense.
The majority of the film plays out over a prolonged radio call between the two men, one stationed in the dispatch centre, one in the control booth of a train car. It’s a testament to Scott’s abilities that he’s able to make this seem so visceral and kinetic! He gives the feeling of dashing around the city at gunpoint, your life on the line at every move. The end of the film deviates from previous versions and brings the two men together, giving in to a more typical Hollywood structure. As fun and tense as this third act is, I couldn’t help but feel let down by the climax. It might have tied up a lot of loose ends, or brought all of the films elements together but ultimately it just felt less “real life” than earlier portions of the film. Despite my reservations about the end of the picture, it’s well worth the watch.
The Taking of Pelham 123 comes to Blu-ray in a reference quality transfer with a near perfect encode. The film looks and sounds like the demo disc you want to use to show off your home theatre. Sony has hit a home run here. Tons of detail, film-like grain structure, crisp blacks and deep, dynamic DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio. Fantastic!
The Blu-ray disc is packed with special features, including a couple of featurettes in 1080p high-def! Both the half-hour “No Time to Lose: The Making of ‘Pelham 1 2 3′” and the 16 minute “The Third Rail: New York Underground” look almost as slick as the film and are pretty packed with information for their short run-times. The third, much shorter doc seems a bit out of place to me. It’s a 5 minute chat with the films stylist who apparently works with Scott on every film he makes. You’ll get an inside look at the struggle to find and maintain an actor’s haircut. Weird. A couple of commentary tracks round out the package of extras – a great one from Scott and a not so fantastic listen courtesy of writer Brian Helgeland and producer Todd Black. There is also a Blu-ray exclusive “cinechat”, IMDB-like “movieIQ” and a digital copy of the film on a separate DVD.
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