Classic Movie Review
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
By Josh Spiegel
June 26, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Having caught both the original film, starring Walter Matthau as a crusty New York transit cop facing off against a group of men who hijack a subway train so they can walk away with a cool million dollars and Robert Shaw as the head hijacker, and the Tony Scott redo, starring Denzel Washington in the Matthau role and John Travolta in the Shaw role, it's interesting that both movies have a lot of similarities, a lot of differences, and a fair amount of flaws. Okay, the new version has the most flaws and diverges heavily from the original, but I'm hard-pressed to dub one of the two movies the victor just yet.
I was surprised, for example, to enjoy the Washington-Travolta pairing in the new Pelham as much as I did, based on the mediocre reviews most critics gave the picture. Though I won't go too much into the flaws this film has (for example, if you don't like the style Tony Scott likes to throw at you in his movies...well, you may not like this movie very much), I will say that it's an entertaining enough thriller on its own, whether it stands up to the original. The original, of course, is beloved in some circles as an exciting thriller that's far smarter than most of its ilk, and rightly so. Matthau and Shaw are at the tops of their games here. Shaw certainly has a showier role in Jaws as the grumpy yet shrewd Quint, but as Mr. Blue, he's a chilling villain, thanks in no small part to how very businesslike he sees the operation of hijacking a subway train, threatening to kill people, and stealing money. Matthau is his usual gruff-yet-lovable self, as Zachary Garber, a transit cop whose day begins by giving some Asian businessmen a tour of his office, and ends with him staring, like a hound dog, into the eyes of one of the hijackers.
That last shot - that of Matthau glaring triumphantly at his prey - is so unique and so unlike the ending of most thrillers, so much so that I was convinced (correctly, too) that the new version wouldn't even consider redoing it. I know each movie has to have its own voice, but I can say with no uncertainty that if you watched both movies, you'd remember the ending to the first film far more than the second one. That unique quality runs throughout all of the original Pelham, a movie that's trying more to evoke reality than trying to scare you. The reality that director Joseph Sargent portrays so smartly, so vividly is New York in the mid-1970s. Obviously, much has changed in the past 35 years, both before and after the horrific events of 9/11. Terrorism was not as prevalent nor as immediate; the city wasn't as friendly now (and I know you think I'm crazy, but back in the 1970s, at least, Disney hadn't taken over even a single inch of real estate), and the people who ran things had their heads in the wrong place altogether.
The biggest example of the latter is the mayor of New York in the older Pelham, so scared and wimpy that his deputy mayor (played by Woody Allen regular Tony Roberts) goads him out of bed and into action. He's almost a cartoon of a man, instead of something realistic. In the new version, however, we have James Gandolfini playing a shrewd politico, someone who's tainted by scandal, but not bad at his actual job. The difference there is striking; it's hard for me to say which works better. In some ways, this characterization is only used in the new film as an example of how things aren't like the original, how the remake is as far from the original as possible.
In the end, I suppose I have to give the victory to the 1974 version of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, a movie that manages to be genuinely suspenseful and thrilling without feeling like it's trapped in the clichés of the typical thriller. Whereas the new version always feels a bit predictable if entertaining, it's hard to know exactly where the plot will take you in the Matthau-Shaw pairing.
And let's talk about Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, and exactly how awesome they were in their best days. Shaw, of course, is in some immensely famous films, such as this one, The Sting, and Jaws, but he died before he could hit his stride as a quirky, enigmatic lead who functions better as an antagonist than anything else. Still, his performance as Mr. Blue in Pelham 1 2 3 is perfectly chilling. Very much unlike his Travolta-played counterpart in the new film, Mr. Blue has absolutely no interest in talking to Garber or anyone else, even his own partners in crime. More than anything, he is a businessman and, despite how cruel he's being to even threaten innocent lives, Mr. Blue sees his actions as part of a common transaction. Shaw never lets any emotions seep out, even when he's got a gun on his person. Even in his last breaths, his Mr. Blue is icy cold to the core.
Garber, as played by Matthau, is the very definition of the word "rumpled." We think of, perhaps, Lt. Columbo, played by Peter Falk, when we think of a rumpled cop who looks a lot dumber than he is. In movies, though, you don't need to look any further than Zachary Garber in Pelham 1 2 3, whom we first see nodding off before starting a tour he's woefully unprepared to give to people who don't really understand what he's going to be talking about. Once he's inadvertently thrust into the position of communicating with Mr. Blue, Garber doesn't let his guard down; even when he initially tries to be nice to Mr. Blue, coaxing him out of his shell, you can tell that he doesn't believe a single word he's saying. Simply because he's not as sincere an actor as Denzel Washington, Matthau doesn't sell the negotiation tactic and doesn't want to. Just as Mr. Blue sees getting his money as a predetermined outcome, so does Garber see his getting the hijackers as written.
Of course, at its heart, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is a You-are-there thrill ride, a slickly entertaining film with barely three-dimensional characters; the relative unpredictability of the story is what sets it apart from other schlocky thrillers. That ending, that last shot I spoke about earlier, is one of the better freeze-frames in cinema history. I can't say I'm a particularly big fan of the freeze-frame choice to end a movie (it doesn't work nearly as well in the new version, I'll tell you that much), but here it works so perfectly, because it's the capper to a final scene that doesn't feel like an ending. Most movies have climaxes and eschew the falling action. Pelham 1 2 3 isn't content with finishing us off with a climax that is, admittedly, not really a slam-bang climax in any way. No, just as the movie starts out unconventionally, so must it end with a basset hound of a man simply looking at someone he's never seen before, and knowing everything there could possibly be to know about that someone. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is not usually thought of as one of the great movies of the 1970s, but it's easily one of the better thrillers of the past 40 years.