Hola all. Massawyrm here.

Unlike many folks I’ve been talking with, I walked into the remake of THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 very excited. After all, the last time uber-genius Brian Helgeland teamed up with Tony Scott and Denzel Washington to remake a film, the result was MAN ON FIRE – a far superior film to its predecessor. Of course, this time they had their work cut out for them. The original MAN ON FIRE wasn’t a particularly great film. THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE was. For the most part, the update was successful. What works in this film really works. Unfortunately, it suffers from a classic, Hollywood blockbuster third act deflation in which everything that worked gets thrown out in order to ramp the film up to whole new level.

Sadly that level can’t live up to what has come before it.

On the outset, this film is tight. It is honed down to a razor’s edge with nary a wasted moment to be found on screen. Scott keeps his recent penchant for frenetic cutting under wraps (except during the opening credit sequence) and uses the pacing to keep us always painfully aware of how little time these characters have to accomplish what they need to. In this manner, the remake is far superior. Once Travolta takes the train, he puts his foot down, shows how serious he is and refuses to waver. As the time ticks away, you are forced to acknowledge that the city might not actually be able to meet the deadline – and at the point the movie reaches its boiling point. It is tense, edge of your seat filmmaking that never lingers, never wastes a single breath of air. The jokes, when they appear, leave as quickly as they arrived and the whole film feels like everything could explode at any moment.

It is under that kind of perfectly constructed pacing that we watch a battle of wits unfold between Travolta and Washington. Both of these guys are pros, and neither needs someone equally talented sitting in front of them in order borrow energy. You just wind them up and let them go. Washington is sedate, playing a downtrodden everyman caught in the middle of something very bad. While he may be the most capable person in the room to handle it, he should never have been put in this situation. He’s just not that guy. Travolta, on the other hand, is completely unhinged. A perfect foil to Washington and a stark contrast to Robert Shaw’s wonderful, but stone faced turn in the role 35 years ago, Travolta gleefully chews up the scenery with dialog that sounds like it was written more for Sam Jackson than Travolta. It’s angry. It is very yell-y. And most importantly, Travolta ends almost every sentence with “Mother Fucker”. I’m pretty sure he even throws out a “Mother Fucker, Mother Fucker” at one point.

Every scene in which we listen to these two verbally spar is a treat – each attempting to rattle the other into making a mistake, giving up a secret or simply surrendering to their way of thinking. Travolta is convinced these two have a lot in common. Washington on the other hand is trying his best to distance himself from the comparison. And the juxtaposition of these two men and what it has to say about responsibility, blame and the human condition is fascinating, riveting stuff.

But then, just as the movie’s slow boil begins to froth over, it all unravels and devolves into an actiony third act that undercuts everything they’ve worked to create. There’s an old story about a supposed meeting with Michael Bay about making the (later Joel Schumacher helmed) PHONEBOOTH in which Bay reportedly said something to the effect of “It’s great. I love the Script. But when can we get him out of the phone booth?” Well, this third act felt very much like that. It felt like they couldn’t wait to turn such a great tense character piece into something more mainstream. Which is a shame.

Fans of the original will note a lot of changes here. First and foremost is that the original Garber character (Played by Walter Matthau) was a hardnosed MTA detective and his exchanges with Shaw were brief, to the point and devoid of personality. Their conversations were between two grumpy bad asses that weren’t about to budge an inch. The battle of wits between them was one man keeping to a plan and the other trying to figure it out. Washington is just an MTA employee. Not a cop. Definitely not a bad ass. But he’s clever, dedicated and controlled – quite the foe for Travolta’s over the top, pissed-at-the-city criminal. These characters are brimming with personality and backstory – something completely lacking in the original. Helgeland’s dialog is SHARP and these guys come through loud, clear and in three distinct dimensions.

While the remake keeps many of the small details (taking the train at 2:13pm and demanding an hour), as well as a few chief plot points, there are scads of little changes that radically alter the entire film and make both distinctly watchable as separate films. One of their best decisions was to drop the original’s use of color names (Mr. Gray, Mr. Blue, Mr. Green). Sure Tarantino stole the idea from the original for use in his RESERVOIR DOGS – but he owns it now. It has become completely co-opted. Meanwhile, certain elements - like the rivalry between the criminals – find themselves abandoned entirely for the sake of something tighter, meaner and much more tense. Finally, the tone of the film is radically different. The original was something of a satire of New York City and the chaos inside the bureaucracy. Much of what goes wrong does so because the MTA doesn’t have its shit together. All of that is gone here. It’s a tight ship with state of the art communications and guidelines to deal with this kind of event – and this time around, that is what the criminals are counting on.

But once the film decides to abandon its formula and go more mainstream, it unravels almost completely. The film changes from something unique into something you’ve seen dozens of times before. Both Scott and Helgeland excel when delivering unconventional endings. They are filmmakers who are best at telling difficult, offbeat stories. When they try to go with by-the-numbers third acts, they almost always unravel as if they’ve gotten bored with the material. And that’s what happens here. I got bored during what should have been a breakneck, nail biter ending. It’s not so bad as to ruin the film – but it doesn’t live up to the promise of the first two acts.

Overall it’s a worthwhile film that should definitely be checked out. Helgeland’s words coming out of Washington’s and Travolta’s mouths are worth the price of admission alone. But it is a bit of a letdown to see something that could have been so good become ultimately forgettable by the time it gets around to wrapping up. It’s a good film - but something that almost feels like a test audience fucked with it somewhere along the line.

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Massawyrm

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