I was aware that the June 12th release of Denzel Washington and John Travolta action-fest "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" was in fact a remake. I had never seen the 1974 original until by chance it was on one of my cable channels and it hooked me in big time! Walter Matthau plays a transit cop in charge of taking down the men responsible for hijacking a subway car and demanding a one million dollar ransom for the passengers on board. The main baddie is played by the late great Robert Shaw and it goes without saying......he's awesome in the flick. I'm not going into a full throttle review of this one, but I will say to check it out if you can.
The first thing you'll notice if you are a Tarantino fan is that the bad guys refer to themselves as Mr. Green, Mr. Blue, and so on....hmmmmmmmm....does that sound familiar? No disrespect to Quentin, I just thought it was neat to be able to connect the dots to his tribute in "Dogs." It was also interesting seeing Matthau playing the action guy role, and his portrayal of Lieutenant Garber sits right next to Coach Buttermaker as my favorite Walter performance.
I am curious to see if the Tony Scott remake will keep the playful tone of the first one. Judging by the trailers it seems to be going for a more serious balls to the wall action approach. I do think that sometimes film stories need to be re-told for new audiences to appreciate. There's no doubt that the old "Pelham" still packs quite a cinematic punch....it's just that it may be hard to convince a younger generation of movie goers to check out a movie with two dead lead actors they have never heard of. Sad but true. I am anxious to see what Scott can do so he will definately be holding my ten bucks for ransom this summer.
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