Oscar-winner Denzel Washington squares off against John Travolta in a
tense hostage thriller directed by Tony Scott and adapted from the same
novel that was the basis of a hit movie 35 years ago. Here's a look at
The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3.
Walter Garber is a traffic manager
in the control center for the vast New York City Subway underground
rail system. On an ordinary day he may have to deal with trains that
break down, derailments, stuck signals and the like.
But when one of his trains stops in mid-tunnel for no apparent reason he quickly finds out this is no ordinary day.
A
train hijacked at gunpoint with hostages' lives at stake puts Garber in
the 'hot seat' because the mastermind of the plot - who calls himself
'Ryder' - will only talk to the dispatcher as he details his demands
punctuated with threats of deadly violence.
Director Tony Scott
says his challenge was to keep the audience in suspense and keep the
movie moving forward as the two adversaries spend much of the time
talking back and forth on the radio.
"For me it's a tough movie
to do," Scott says. "Two-thirds of the movie is two guys on the phone
so I saw that as being a challenge to keep the anxiety and momentum
going because, as I say, two-thirds of the movie it's two guys on the
phone with each other."
As he did in hit movies like Top Gun
and Crimson Tide, Scott relies on reality rather than digital
effects, in this case putting his actors in real New York subway cars
and along the tracks in the real tunnels.
"The city was the
third character in the movie and became a very important factor," says
Scott. "That's why I opened the movie with freneticism and anxiety
which I stole from "Koyaanisqatsi," which was a big, old 'stoner' movie
from the '70's - the same time they brought out [the
original]"…Pelham." I wanted to make the city a very strong character
and I think I handled and shot it in a way that it hasn't been before.
It's always about noise and people and anxiety, so it was a great
contrast. For me this movie was a brilliant canvas in terms of the
bowels of the city of New York down in the subway system to the
calmness and the quiet of the almost NASA-like MTA control center. So I
had a great canvas on which to work. "
"I just liked the fact that he was an ordinary guy in an extraordinary situation," adds Denzel Washington.
…Pelham
1-2-3 is co-star Washington's fourth film with director Scott; and for
this one Washington says his big challenge was not to be a police
officer or a leader, but to be just an ordinary civil servant.
"The
challenge is that there was nothing special about the guy," Washington
says. "He's a regular, hard-working 'Joe' and I embraced that. So he
doesn't know anything about guns. We don't suddenly find out that he
was in 'Delta Force' as a kid. He's just an overweight, coffee-spilling
klutz who saves the day."
The original film starred Walter
Matthau as Garber and Robert Shaw was the subway hijacker, the
character John Travolta plays in the new film. However Washington says
it is not based on that 1974 thriller.
"I don't think it's a
remake," Washington says. "I think it's basically a story of a hostage
situation on a train in New York City. I think that's what the two
films have in common and I don't know that my character and the
character that Walter Matthau played are that similar."
The
Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 also features John Turturro as the New York
police department's skilled hostage negotiator. James Gandolfini plays
the city's scandal-plagued mayor and Luiz Guzman is one of Travolta's
key henchmen in the hijacking. The screenplay, adapted from the novel
by John Godey, is by Brian Helgeland.
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