Blu-ray Review: The Taking of Pelham 123

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (henceforth to be referred to as Pelham in this review) is something of an oddball movie because at times it isn’t sure quite what it’s meant to be.  Is it an action movie, thriller, character piece?  More on that in a moment.

This re-imagining (which is Hollywood’s latest word for remake) comes from director Tony Scott and stars Denzel Washington (a Scott favourite) and John Travolta.
The plot centres around Washington playing a New York MTA employee named Walter Garber, a high flyer in the transit system who has been busted down to Dispatcher after some alleged improprieties over an order for new trains.

Travolta plays the villain of the piece, the leader of a group of train hijackers named Ryder who along with a bunch of thugs take control of train Pelham 1 2 3.  They hold the passengers hostage for ten million dollars which has to be delivered within one hour, otherwise Ryder is going to start getting trigger happy with the passengers.  Naturally our man Denzel starts the conversation with Ryder until chief hostage negotiator Camonetti (John Turturro) comes on the scene and starts to try and broker a deal.  With unhappy consequences, naturally.

What follows is a lot of back and forth between Washington and Travolta on the trains’ radio, interspersed with some light action before setting the movie up for a more action packed finale.

As I alluded to at the start of the review, my biggest problem with Pelham is that it doesn’t quite know what sort of a movie it wants to be.
Given that the movie is in semi real time ala 24, the imposed hour that Ryder gives to the City of New York (and grease ball mayor James Gandolfini) is supposed to make things fast paced and exciting it felt like one of the longest hours I’ve experienced.
When you strip everything off the movie itself it actually isn’t really that exciting.  This theory seems to pay off for me given that Scott unleashes almost every camera trick in the book to try and spice up the tension level and ends up coming off as extremely annoying.
We have the circular sweep shot when a discussion is going on (those who suffer from motion sickness look away for several scenes), we cut to a helicopter flying through the sky which has frames chopped out so it looks edgy and exciting (or you think “is this Blu-ray disc skipping or something?”).  There’s the Google Maps/Live overlay sweeps around the city we have seen before in Scotts movies like Enemy of the State (my personal favourite).

So the movie is so achingly desperate to make you think things are exciting it is at times extremely offputting.
So we can safely say this isn’t an action movie, although there is some semi-decent action right towards the very end of the movie on the crowded NYC streets).

In actual fact, Pelham is more of a character piece (with annoying camera sweeps) than anything.  Many of the movies high points for me were the conversations between Ryder and Garber with Washington turning in a typically studied and acted performance.
But for me extra credit must go to Travolta for adding several little nuances to the character of Ryder who is constantly on the edge of losing it (and frequently does), all the time looking twitchy and edgy.

However, for every quality character moment there are some real clunkers elsewhere, particularly with the teenager talking to his girlfriend on his laptop via WiFi.  This emo bint is more concerned that her soon to be shot by terrorists boyfriend won’t say “I love you” to her while she’s pouring out her heart, making a noise and probably watching Twilight on another screen.
These two also provide the lowest point of the movie whereby apparently in New York you can’t just say “I love you” you have to add “fucking” into almost every sentence.  So don’t you worry readers, the really fucking love each other!

I realise that much of my review of this movie may come off sounding rather negative, but Pelham isn’t a bad movie.  It’s just a slightly odd one.  It has been marketed as an action movie (which it isn’t) whereas it is closer to a thriller (without too many thrills).  Both Sally and I enjoyed the experience of watching Pelham which has many high points, just don’t expect it to be a blown the barn doors off action thriller ride experience extravaganza(TM).

Audio Visual
As per usual we have an MPEG 4 1080p encoding on a dual layer BD50 disc from Sony, and as we should expect from a brand new movie it looks superb.
For his last few films Scott has gone for a very specific look to his movies starting off with Enemy of the State but really coming to the fore with his other recent Washington starring movies Deja Vu and Man on Fire.  Intentionally grainy image, slightly muted but still bold colours and high contrast.

This may sound like a recipe for visual disaster but the encoding on this disc is spot on.  Dark scenes (of which there are a lot given that the train is stuck in a tunnel for an hour) never lead to any problems with black levels or colour bleeding.  Facial definition is good, this is a typically solid transfer from SPHE.

On the audio front I’m pleased to report that Sony are continuing to use DTS HD Master Audio as the sonic codec of choice (or at least they have since Angels & Demons which was the last movie I reviewed several months ago).
This is a pretty punchy track, which really comes alive towards the end of the movie as the action ramps up, but there is plenty on offer throughout the rest of the dialogue heavy movie with environmental audio all helping to create a fully encompassing soundscape.

Given that there is a lot of dialogue here, it is always at the forefront of the mix so there are never any “what did he say?” moments.  This is a very solid soundtrack to go with the equally impressive visuals.

Bonus Features
We start off with two commentary tracks, one from Tony Scott and the other from writer Brian Helgeland and producer Todd Black.
Really you can pick one track here and skip the other, as a lot of the information given is repeated but either track is a fairly engaging listen, particularly Scott’s.  Both tracks cover the film making process, the original movie, MTA, etc but if you aren’t a fan of commentaries then you just need to check out…

The Making of Pelham 1 2 3 – This 30 minute HD documentary pretty much sums up all you need to know about making the movie itself.  Much of the runtime is taken up dealing with the logistical aspects of filming in NYC itself and the MTA involvement, with cast interviews surprisingly light the spotlight focuses more on the actual MTA workers themselves which makes a nice change.  Definitely a big step up from the usual EPK fayre.

The Third Rail: New York City Underground – Running at 16 minutes in HD this feature focuses more strongly on the MTA themselves (who already get a large amount of screen time in the preceding feature) and showing how the producers, cast and crew dealt with filming in the tunnels.

From the Top Down – WHAT?  A feature on maybe some action or special effects?  Or a character study perhaps?  No, five minutes of talking about hairdressing which is effectively “the lead characters have their hair done with clippers”.  Can you hear the bottom of the barrel being scraped yet?

Marketing Pelham – Or it should be given its proper name “all the trailers stitched together”.   Barrel scrape confirmed!

Summing Up
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is an enjoyable movie provided you know what it is.  A character drama with light action overtones that features excellent performances from its lead and supporting cast (mostly).  Tony Scott’s frenetic camera work may not be to everyone’s taste (particularly mine) but this disc is definitely worth a rental or a purchase if you are a fan of the actors or just well put together Blu-ray discs.

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