June 22: My take on the taking of Pelham 123
Just about passable is my verdict. I think there was potential to make a great train movie. What we got was an interesting movie but not a riveting one. The sights and sounds of the subway were underplayed. Those not familiar with New York wouldn't have caught what the alignment of the Lexington ave line in the city is (or even what the boroughs are), what Pelham is, how the new trainsets differ from old ones, what is a local, what is an express etc.
They could have used the pretext of Travolta doing a reconaissance to show plenty of subway sights and sounds of express trains thundering past stations, trains accelerating, deccelerating, honking, screeching...and supply some context (in geography, train trivia, New York City...)
A large chunk of the movie is shot in a stationary subway car with Travolta on the phone with Denzel W.The real subway 'action' is when they try to escape and the single car runs unmanned. There is some debate about whether these trainsets will allow a single car to run by itself or whether at least two will be required.
I didn't get the whole point of Travolta forcing Denzel W. to confess to bribe taking. Are we supposed to believe that he did it? Some of the general new York city shots are good. The control room looks realistic. The armed men don't look particularly menacing and the snipers are made to look incompetent.
