RATING:

As I was settling into my seat for the screening of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, a young man came up to me and asked, “Are you excited?”
“I guess,” I said (unconvincingly). “I really loved the original, so I’m not exactly sure why we needed a remake.”
“This is a remake?” the kid asked.
And there you go.
To be honest, I actually feel sorry for people whose sole experience with this film—about the hijacking of a New York subway car—comes courtesy of Tony Scott’s slickly efficient but soulless version. The original was gritty, funky, funny, and humane—positively redolent with a sense of New York City and its people.
The new flick has its moments—mostly the scenes between Denzel Washington as Walter Garber, the mild-mannered NYC transit worker, and John Travolta as Ryder, the pissed off philosopher-hijacker he must negotiate with—but Scott is clearly much more interested in keeping the action swift and the body count high than giving us a sense of place.  In Joseph Sargent’s original, we felt the  anxiety of the hostages, plus a bit of their fighting New York spirit—here, they’re largely anonymous. (Scott could hardly seem to be bothered with them.) Likewise, in the original, we got to know all sorts of characters—an antsy sniper who waited on the tracks, the deputy mayor, some cops on the beat, the hijackers themselves. But Scott stays mostly fixed on Washington and Travolta (although John Turturro, as a savvy hostage negotiator and James Gandolfini, as a Bloomberg-like mayor, make impressions.)
Travolta is clearly having fun with his flamboyant role, but it’s Washington who’s really doing work. Watching Garber’s split-second reactions to Ryder’s changing demands and provocations is a lot of fun. (I don't think he quite tops Walter Matthau’s menschy take on the role, but Denzel certainly comes close.) Still, they give Garber a murky back story (not in the original) that is supposed to justify his unlikely heroics at the end. I didn't buy it.
The new The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is just fine if you’re looking for a swift rush of adrenaline to the head. But the original was a genre-film classic. Hooray progress?