Movie Review: "The Taking of Pelham 123"

I love Denzel Washington. That guy has made memorable flick after memorable flick. His action movies are usually his best, because he's the perfect combination of "I can kill you if I want to" and "I'm ten times as cool as you are". So, as you could probably surmise from my NBA Finals live-blogs, I went to see "The Taking of Pelham 123" on opening night. It was really, really good. It bordered on great for about 100 minutes and then sort of unraveled during the last 20 minutes. That's not a knock on the movie as a whole, though; you should still go see it.

The premise, as many of you know, is that Ryder (John Travolta) hijacks a train car on the New York City Subway and holds the passengers for a ransom of $10 million. By happenstance, Walter Garber (Washington) is the one who begins communication with Ryder. Despite the presence of police negotiators and the like, Ryder will only talk to Garber. This is one of the stronger points of the movie. Travolta and Washington are fantastic as they smart-but-kinda-crazy criminal and the good-hearted-but-not-an-angel worker, respectively. Their exchanges range from humorous to emotional, but always seem to work. The chemistry between these two is superb and really gives the film a ton of energy.

The plot itself is smartly executed...up until the end. The plot works as long as you suspend your belief somewhat, as the climax of the story is a bit implausible. Don't get me wrong, it's not as implausible as the ending to "Armageddon" or anything, but for a movie that is so creative and so intense for such a long while, it's a bit of a letdown. Luckily, the rest of the movie is superb, which leaves you walking out of the theater with a great feeling of satisfaction. The strength of the movie lies in the fact that nothing is rushed, and all of the pieces of dialogue seem to fit together to build a nice story. There is a good pace to the movie, which slowly crescendos until the action-packed ending. Once it's over, everything makes sense and you won't be spending the entire car ride home trying to figure out what happened. Quite sensible (for the bulk of it), yet very entertaining? Sign me up.

I'm sure several of my friends have yet to see it and if they ask me to join them when they do, I certainly will. It's well worth your $30 or how much ever your local theater asks for tickets these days (and you wonder why I still use my student ID). The dialogue is great, Travolta and Washington are lights-out, and the action sequences, while limited, are very well-done. Overall, it's definitely a movie worth seeing, especially if you're a Denzel Washington advocate like myself.

~~ Lank