Tuesday, Jun. 16, 2009

'Pelham 123' takes zero chances

By Edward Robertson, atomictown.com

As a former mole-person of the New York City subway tunnels, it always gets me to see the old homestead portrayed so biasedly in movies.

The focus is always on the bad things. The stained platforms. The solid mats of garbage between the tracks. The armies of rats leading rat-crusades to reclaim their holy land of Jersey City. They never show the good -- our emphasis on recycling, our brave ability to pass out in the middle of our own rambling stories, the way our waist-length beards flutter as we're performing our summer run of "Die Fledermaus" for those two college students who went missing last semester.

-- Trailer, times, theaters.

-- Read Mr. Movie's review.

So it's located deep underground, it's filled with lost souls, and there's people speaking in German. Doesn't that sound like heaven to you? Yet to believe movies such as the regrettably unnoteworthy Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, you should somehow be scared to be kidnapped at gunpoint and held captive in what we like to call the "Palm Springs of Dank, Lightless Horror-Lands."

Under the streets of NYC, John Travolta and his band of thugs hijack a subway train, taking 19 hostages. They demand $10 million ransom delivered in one hour or they'll start killing passengers one by one.

Hostage negotiations won't work -- the capricious Travolta will only deal with Denzel Washington, a low-level train dispatcher under investigation for taking bribes. With no other option, mayor James Gandolfini rushes to pay the ransom before the mortal deadline.

If you're planning on seeing this, don't spend any time guessing where that plot will go, because you'll be right and then your brain will be mad at you for spoiling what's otherwise a thoroughly mediocre thriller, and you don't want your brain mad at you. Not when it has the power to bombard your pantsless computer time with mental images of shaved, winking donkeys.

Speaking of cool facial hair (what did you think I was talking about?), Travolta and his evildoer goatee is clearly meant to be a big draw in The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. That could have worked: it's a truism that bad guys are always more fun to watch than good guys, probably because deep down, we all secretly wish we could butcher 19 helpless subway passengers.

Travolta gives it what he's got, but writer Brian Helgeland pens his character in as one more furious, whimsical sociopath out for vengeance on the society that did him dirty. Don't think I don't identify with that -- you all are going down -- but at this point that type is roughly as old as the sun's grandpa.

Still, Travolta's got more personality than his hapless crime buddies, aka Scary Guy Who Gets Shot #1 and Scary Guy Who Gets Shot #2. With such interchangeable characters, there's no motivation to get invested in any of them.

Veteran action director Tony Scott is at least skilled enough to keep the pacing taut, and things look good enough in that way of "this movie cost more to make than the gross income of your entire family line dating back to when they used live crabs for money."

On top of that ringing endorsement, the movie makes no real missteps, probably because it takes absolutely zero chances. Slick but hollowly derivative, Pelham is a movie you've seen before you walk into the theater.

Grade: C