Directed by Tony Scott, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is a remake crime thriller that was released back in June 2009. The plot of the movie is quite simple: Armed men lead by a man named Ryder (John Travolta) take control of a New York City subway train and hold its hostages for a ransom. MTA dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington) ends up being the guy who has to talk to the bad guys.

There is nothing really glaringly wrong with Pelham 1 2 3, it’s a decently entertaining movie with some good dialogue between the two co-stars. It’s even unintentionally funny while trying to be serious. The part where Denzel’s wife ask him to bring home a gallon of milk to make sure he doesn’t die, that was hilarious! The performances are unspectacular but solid. Both John Travolta and Denzel Washington have seen better days but for the most part, there is nothing to complain about. Good old John Turturro does a solid job as a NYPD negotiator. Something that really annoyed me was some of Tony Scott quirks. For example, he will literally  rotate a camera around characters in the middle of a dialogue for minutes at a time which was very very annoying after the 18th time. Plainly stated, this movie felt like Tony Scott just got a video camera for Christmas and he is playing with it for the first time ever.

Quite surprisingly, this movie’s budget was $100 million which is quite a high amount for what we (don’t) see on-screen: no big explosions, a few cars rolling over, not even any expensive CGI or a train going belly up. The movie did not do so well at the box office with only $65 million at the US box office. (My criteria is at a minimum to break even with the film budget to be a minor hit)

Entertaining summer movie but for a thriller, it’s just not that thrilling.

C+