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Last Updated: Aug 27th, 2009 - 05:32:21 |
In “Pelham 1-2-3” our man Denzel Washington is the calm solid rock in the eye of the storm. He is the reliable public servant. He is the hard-working husband. He is the good daddy.
And with my only caveat that Hollywood better NOT try to push our man Denzel so quickly into the role of an avuncular, pension-seeking Black man, I admit that I thoroughly enjoyed this remake of the 1974 thriller. In this new version, Washington plays Walter Garber, a New York City Transit Authority worker who happens to answer the call when a subway car is hijacked and passengers are held for ransom from the city.
On the other end the line is the bad guy hijacker played by John Travolta, who asks the mayor (James Gandolfini) for $10 million or he will kill one passenger for each minute that the money is late. As city and police officials figure out how to handle the crisis, the plot is filled with action and violence, and accented with zippy editing and dialogue.
Director Tony Snow goes a bit overboard with his high octane rendering of the action and of today’s New York City but he counterbalances these scenes with equally intense moments of conversation and interpersonal tensions. This is today’s New York City, complete with crooked Wall Street guys, a philandering Mayor, cop who is just doing his job—and a transit worker who is doing what he needs to do to survive.
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