Open Thread: ‘The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3′
by Big Hollywood
Big Hollywood’s “Pelham” review can be found here.
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My wife mentioned somebody on NPR really ripped it. I laughed and told her maybe I should re-think my less than stellar reaction to the "re-telling." Instead, I ordered the DVD of the original from Amazon for $9.99
I read the book in Junior High (what is now called 'middle school' I believe), and was shocked that it's back!
I just saw the original (that net flix thing is kinda neat-o and just might catch on). I thought it was fairly realistic. The "just let me do my job and don't bother me" attitude of the city employees was spot on. (i've worked in and around government for years so I know what I'm talking about here.) The cynicism is well done, especially at the end when Matthau finds the last guy.
It doesn't hold up as a thriller for me, I don't feel the suspense. (Maybe it did in its originaI release timeframe) I like the fact that the city is just partially tied up in the drama. Most people are going about life as normal.
The way they listed the characters in the credits was interesting: The Hippy, The Pimp, The Homosexual… I wasn't able to figure out who the names referred to in every case.
As far as the new movie seems like it might be heavy handed and overly action oriented. I think that is why the original works: it just let you watch things unfold.
I have the original on DVD, watch it quite often, hopefully when I see the remake disappointment won't run high,
As so many remakes are disappointing.
I do recommend seeing the original Taking of Pelham 1 2 3′ before seeing the remake.
Not too many people biting on "Pelham" right now so let me try something. I'll ask people to name three movies they have really enjoyed off the top of their head. They don't have to be your favorites, they just have to be the first three you think of: For me this is what just jumped out: Fractured (really impressed with Ryan Gossling's performance) Mulholland Drive (incredible performance by Naomi Watts) and the Fugitive (just one of those movies I can watch a bunch of times and still enjoy it.)
"Clue," "Iron Man," and "Gone in 60 Seconds." "Clue" was a neat little movie with a cast that was obviously having a ball making it, with very quotable dialogue and little details you picks up on subsequent viewings. "Iron Man" was simply the best comic book film made, a perfect mix of wit, action, and heart, without the angst of "The Dark Knight." And "Gone in 60 Seconds" is just a good popcorn flick with really fast cars and, again, a cast that looks like it's enjoying itself.
I'll bite.
I am assuming you mean movies of any age (the Fugitive is getting up there)
The three that popped into my head right away are…..
We're No Angels (1955, Aldo Ray is great)
Waking Ned Devine (one of my few Indy favorites)
and
Kelly's Heroes (Try and put that cast together today)
Sad to say other than WALL-E nothing recent really pop's out……..Faulty memory today………..
The Lives of Others
Grindhouse
Tropic Thunder
Mr Smith Goes to Washington (the earnestness of Jimmy Stewart, and the incredible legnths the writters went to to not identify party or homestate)
Westworld (Yul Brenner is this movie, and quite creepy. A pre-terminator terminator.)
the number 23 ( exploring sanity is iffy. I think this was well done. and a rare instance of restraint by Jim Carrey)
Nice to see some Fugitive love here! I own the DVD but it's one of those movies I just have to watch if it's on TV. Also nice to see some Clue love. I saw it for the first time a few years ago in LA at a midnight showing. Audience participation was encouraged and they had performers on stage, a la Rocky Horror Picture Show!
For me, I'll toss my hat in the ring for Innerspace, Executive Decision, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Innerspace is my favorite Joe Dante movie and won the Oscar for best FX. Roger Ebert even thought the inside-the-body footage was real! It's just an enjoyable ride with Dante's stock company (Dick Miller, Robert Picardo, Kevin McCarthy, etc.) at their hammy best. Who doesn't love the Cowboy?
Executive Decision is a very good, eerily prescient terrorism thriller about a hijacked plane. It's not even my favorite genre but I find the film immensely entertaining, from the interplay between the soldiers to Jerry Goldsmith's militaristic score to Kurt Russell's fish out of water character. And for once, there's no mole. By that, I mean there's no act 3 "The CIA was behind the whole thing!" revelation.
As for Indy, I love all three (I don't count Crystal Skull) films equally but I've seen this one the most. I know some of the FX are shoddy and they made the Brody character a moron but it's still an enjoyable, action-packed movie and I love the Ford/Connery stuff. I'm a sucker for a good father-son story.
Downey was great in Tropic Thunder wasn't he……..and to steal from someone elses comment at BH. Jack Black was actually watchable in it………………….
Westworld is a very cool flick. Yul Brenner was the "First Terminator"………..
Shawkshank Redemption .
)
Serenity
Balls of Fury.. (yeah, everyone has to have one screwball silly comedy on their list
The Dark Crystal (A boy becomes a man & fulfills a prophecy at the same time)
The Thing (1981) (a remake of the The Thing from Another World from the story "Who Goes There" about a shapeshifting alien who can become any living thing it consumes; the terror comes in the suspense of not knowing who is human & who is not until the alien is forced to reveal itself.)
Sunset Boulevard (original) (another film about isolation with madness in the form of silent film star, Norma Desmond, who has lost her grip on the real world thanks to her sycophant driver & the sad fate of a writer who gets caught up in Norma's madness. I enjoy the many twists in this film since they come out of nowhere.)
Primer – right or wrong answers – I am a fan of Waking Ned Devine as well
Ah, Sebastian – Sunset Boulevard is a great one!
Scott – all three of the originals were great, but what was neat about the first one was there was virtually no hype or expectations before it was released
Drawing a blank today………. I have "The Wrestler" and "Gran Torino" staged in the dvd player, hopefully I won't be let down…
Thank for the suggestion on "Talking Timbuktu"….Very Cool!
Totally agree about Iron Man. It is absolutely the best comic book adaption I've ever seen
The original Pelham 1-2-3 was excellent, and as I hate remakes in general I have no plans to see the new version. OK, maybe if I ever find the remake in the library one day I might pick it up. But the geniuses in Hollywood should have left well enough alone.
Glad you like it, it is kind of different. BTW in my comment above it was supposed to be "no wrong or right answers."
The Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The Alien movies. The Lord of the Rings movies. Any Clint Eastwood western, war movie, or cop movie . All the Mr Moto movies. Most Hitchcock movies. Anything by Pixar. Anything by Hayao Miyazaki. I could go on.
Loved "Tropic Thunder"… both Panda scenes made it worth watching twice, same rental of course, we're not crazy…
Speaking of Eastwood, "Grand Torino", nicely made movie…Eastwood does it again.
Here here to Seb and "Sunset Blvd." I can, and do watch that movie anytime, anywhere it's on…the ending is beyond classic.
The original Pelham 1, 2, 3 is a masterpiece. It's an almost perfect 70's movie–psychology over action, minimalist acting at times, dark nihilistic humor, ugly actors in a dirty city, and a love letter to NYC attitude.
The Matthau racist joke, the give and take between him and Stiller, the matter of factness of Robert Shaw.
This re-imagining is an abortion of all that.
Lame lame LAME! Inferior to the original in every possible way: setting, acting, humor, suspense, realism, and score. The only thing that saves it from being a waste of two hours and $8 is Denzil.
The ending is a total rip-off of the ending of Falling Down (Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall, end of the Venice pier). It's such a lame rip-off I didn't even bother to write "spoiler warning." it's not worth warning anyone over.
Why, then, does this junk get nice reviews? Because the writers pandered to the Hollywood neo-marxist worldview. The bloodthursty psychopath wears a prominent crucifix. The shallow, pompous fat guy wears a flag pin. The psychopath states that what he is doing is "just business," no different than what happens every day on Wall Street. Thus, they hit all three notes: religion, capitalism, and the flag, assuring themselves a wink and a nod from the reviewers.
Thanks for the warning. I 'll be sure to avoid it like The DaVinci Code and Milk and Land Of The Lost etc.
Ditto! You just saved me $10. If Travolta’s character had said he voted for Obama, or mockingly said something about "change we can believe in," then I may have considered it. I read somewhere there's even an offhanded swipe at Giuliani* from the mayor (the disappointedly liberal James Gandolfini).
Just more liberal conformism. Sorry Hollywood, try again.
* If I'm wrong about that, please clarify. Thanks
Thanks very much for the heads up. I hate it when a film that I originally thought was pretty close to perfect is "reimagined" by guys like Tony Scott. I'll wait until the new "Pelham" is available for a buck from the local video store.
So, compared to the open threads for "Star Trek" and "Up', there's not much traffic here. Seems like this film is not a big favorite at BH.
I saw the film "The Taking of Pelham 123" today and was surprised at how good the film turned out. It is equal to the original film if not more exciting and engrossing and I have seen the original many times and Travolta and Washington and supporting cast give terrific performances. The only disappointment I have with this new entry is the ending, the last 15 minutes of which I thought was rather weak as compared to what came before it. Overall, from where I sat this is a solid action thriller.
Wow, the circle 6 on top of the train looks just like the Big Hollywood logo. Is "Pelhman" part of the Breitbart plot to take over Western civilization?
gee, Ms. Preston, did the kids go with you? what did they think of the show, other than daddy's fabulous performance?
Saw it. Liked it. Better than the average film out lately.
Siouxsie & the Banshees wrote a song based on Sunset Boulevard called "I Could Be Again"; it is the B-side of "Face to Face" or found on Downside Up CD box set. Siouxsie quotes Norma Desmond in the song.
"…especially at the end when Matthau finds the last guy. "
Absolutely! That final, jowly (sp) close-up was one of the best closing shots ever. Haven't seen the film yet, so I don't know if they capped it (probably not) – heard that they lost the Mr. Color Name, which was later cadged byTarantino for "Reservoir Dogs".
"The Hippy, The Pimp, The Homosexual… I wasn't able to figure out who the names referred to in every case."
LOL!
I've watched Goldie Hawn in Foul Play too many times t count. And I still laugh all the way through. And I loved Nick Nolte in Cannery Row but I haven't seen it in years. Oh, and I'm not a big Clint Eastwood fan so I was surprised how much I loved Gran Torino.
The original was on cable last night and I saw it for the first time. I had not read this thread yet and was looking for issues that Big Hollywood may approach. These's a couple of lines in the first part of the film where Mathau says "This is not a democracy". And the political leaders are seen sickly weak and more interested in a bad tv game show. Lots of racially politically incorrect moments, which I'm guessing are either left out of the new version or is presented as a racist character.
The original has so little backstory of the bad guys, that it seems absurd when Shaw lights himself up. I'm guessing in the new version we will have some sort of understanding of the bad guy, and maybe we will even feel "empathy".
Last night, despite my general revulsion of Hollywood remakes, I managed to see the new version of “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3.” Perhaps the fact that I had a free pass to the promo of “The Proposal,” which ended just before “Pelham” was scheduled to begin, had something to do with it. Notice I said “scheduled to begin,” in actuality one had to sit through at least 15 minutes of commercials first.
Back to “Pelham.” The 1974 flick of the same name was a classic which I heartily recommend to anyone; it’s a great period piece of 1970s New York. The new movie has been updated for the 21st century yet is not as good as the original.
A review of the movie is here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2220279/pagenum/all/
NPR’s article is here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor...
I agree with this article’s title:
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2009-06-11/film/th...
“The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3: In This Subway Series, the Original Pelham Wins.”
Takeaway quote: “In the original Pelham, director Joseph Sargent's uncluttered direction played up the sweaty-collared confinement of the subway car and the transit office, locking the cops and crooks each in their own pressure cooker. Which marks, oh, the 50th time I've unfavorably compared the remake to the original — the lazy reviewer's default setting, to be sure. But Scott's redo comes up short in almost every regard against the '74 model — against David Shire's knuckled-brass score, against its mugs' gallery of '70s New York character actors, against Peter Stone's serrated script, and certainly against its wordless punchline, beside which the new version's gloppy coda looks sappy indeed. If it's somehow unfair to compare the two, why was The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 even remade?”
There were many inaccuracies with New York geography and the Subway system. As NPR points out, “Even [today’s] subway cars are smarter and more efficient. In both movies, as part of their plan the hijackers disconnected a car and drove it away from the rest of the train. They could have done that in the '70s, but the modern operational systems would never allow it today.” That’s because the TA was operating self-contained, single unit cars, R21s, while the modern R142s operate in 5-car semi-permanently coupled units. “"You can’t have a single subway car in operation," says John Johnson, NYC Transit’s chief transportation officer.”So it’s not really possible to hijack a train like in the movie."
Quote taken from article from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2...
Unfortunately, R142 interiors must conform to narrow IRT loading gauge so interior shots used wider R160 cars from the BMT/IND division.
What was really irritating was the NY geography mix-up. For examples, the crooks stop the train to get away just below 34th Street, mistakenly labeled “Herald Square” on the Command Center display board. However, the Lexington Avenue line crosses 34th Street at Park Avenue, east of Herald Square, which is a BMT/IND stop anyway. But then, the crooks exit the subway through the Waldorf-Astoria, which has somehow been moved south from 49/50th Streets. And after the crooks jury-rig the single R142 with the deadman-override device, they send it careening off the Coney Island, again a BMT/IND location not reachable from the southbound Lexington Avenue line.
Also notice that the Command Center, ostensibly in Midtown, was actually at South Ferry, judging from the exteriors. Also, driving the money from the “Brooklyn Federal Reserve” that’s actually located in lower Manhattan was via a roundabout Queens route. And when Denzell rides the #7 back to his Queens home, you see a proper R62 exterior but inside he’s in a R160 again.
So, if you’re thinking of seeing Pelham, save yourself $10, rent the DVD of the 1974 version. If you need to see the remake, wait for DVD.
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