Posted 2:00 am Friday, June 19, 2009
In Review: To Remake Or Not To Remake: Not As Easy As 1-2-3
By STEWART SMITH
Entertainment Writer
I've got a love/hate relationship with remakes.
Entertainment Writer
I've got a love/hate relationship with remakes.
On one hand, Hollywood is eating itself alive right now as it seems intent on remaking nearly every original property that's ever been produced resulting in what feels like an inescapable black hole of creativity.
A scene from the 2009 Columbia Pictures film “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” starring John Travolta. The movie is in theaters now.
On the other hand, just because a film is a remake doesn't preclude it from being a great movie and, in some cases, better than the original. See Steven Soder-bergh's "Ocean's 11," Martin Scorc-ese's "Cape Fear" and especially John Carpenter's "The Thing" for proof of that.
So where does that leave director Tony Scott's remake of the 1974 subway heist film "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three"? Audiences would be better off just putting the original on their Netflix queue or going to see "Up" or "Star Trek" again.
I love the original. It's a type of movie that no one makes anymore and probably will never make anymore. You've got Walter Matthau's schlub of a main character (who looks like he'd rather be out eating a hot dog than help save the day) squaring off against the cool-as-ice Robert Shaw. You've got David Shire's amazing, funky score and the deft handling of a script that in the hands of almost anyone other than director Joseph Sargent would likely have felt incredibly by-the-numbers.
But this iteration of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" (the remake can't be bothered to spell out the numbers like the original, you see) is the cinematic equivalent of a KFC Famous Bowl - a mix of ingredients that I often enjoy separately, but when mixed into one product result in something remarkably unappetizing. Tony Scott, Denzel Washington, music by Harry Gregson-Williams, scripts by Brian Helgeland (he wrote "Man on Fire" and adapted "L.A. Confidential") and even John Travolta, on occasion, (fittingly he is like the cheese ingredient of the Famous Bowl: I enjoy cheese, but not on everything) are all things I can enjoy. But put all these things together, however, and it just becomes glop.
If there's a single person to blame for this whole mess of a film, though, it's Scott. "True Romance," "The Last Boy Scout," "Man on Fire" and even "Top Gun" are all fun movies that benefit from his style of filmmaking. However this film, the story of a loony criminal named Ryder (Travolta) who hijacks a NYC subway car and Walter Garber, an MTA dispatcher (Washington) who gets caught in the middle of the situation, most certainly does not benefit from Scott's style.
Instead of a movie that digs into the meticulously planned heist (and the resulting tension that should drive the rest of the film) and the characters of Ryder and Garber, we instead get enough hyperactive editing and camera movement to exhaust an ADD-addled 12-year-old, thin characters and ridiculous action scenes with cars that flip 800 times. (That number might be a slight exaggeration. Maybe).
Instead of the steely resolve of Robert Shaw's criminal mastermind we get John Travolta's attempts to chew the scenery, only he ends up choking on the pieces instead of swallowing them whole. When he's really on, Travolta can do crazy just fine. Go watch "Face/Off" or "Broken Arrow" for proof. Here, he's straining. There's a few crumbs-worth of a backstory for his character, but otherwise there's not much for him to work with other than the crazed look in Ryder's eyes.
Denzel fares the best out of everyone involved, though not by much. I was glad to see him tack on some pounds for the role as Garber's everyman quality is one of, if not the most, important facets of the story. Garber isn't a hero. He doesn't try to be one, he doesn't want to be one, but Ryder's instability and attachment to Garber force him into the middle of the whole ordeal. Washington delivers his performance with the gravitas one would expect and it creates the needed level of audience attachment, but despite some much needed characterization the script attempts to give him the character still feels hollow. There's just no replacing Walter Matthau's rumpled dignity, it seems.
Couple all of this with the fact that the third act devolves into a bunch of ill-fitting action flick cliches, "Pelham 1 2 3" becomes something that isn't worth anyone's time. I just wonder who thought that Tony Scott would be a good fit for a film of this sort. This is a story that requires precision and should be allowed to unfold at a much slower pace. I can't help but wonder what it would have been in the hands of someone like Michael Mann. This isn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but it might just be one of the most mediocre.
Grade: D -
