Review of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) by Chads. — 13 Jun 2009

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Pioneering filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumiere would be proud. Recalling a nineteenth century bijou audience's reaction to a train arriving at a station(from the short subject film "L'arrive d'un train a la ciotat"), a young woman backs away from her computer screen when one of the terrorists discovers her boyfriend's laptop.

Since "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" isn't a Japanese horror movie, her agitated state caused by the approaching man is unwarranted. She doesn't cover her face like a moviegoer would during the scary parts(for instance, Hideo Nakata's "Ringu"); she forgets about the physical laws of demarcation, just like those patrons who fled their seats from the speeding locomotive circa 1897.

She forgets her twenty-first century sophisticated self for a split second and cowers as if her life was in mortal danger. But a lot has indeed changed since 1974: a self-reflexive moment comments on the Joeph Sargent original, in which Camonetti(John Turturro), the official hostage negotiator, tries to replace Walter Garber(Denzel Washington) as the lead actor by taking over the impending crisis.

Ryder(John Travolta), despite being the story's antagonist, on an extra-diegetic level, performs textually as the film's advocate for social change, when he restores Walter to his rightful spot of being the man in charge(the leading man).

Sharing the same first name with the original film's star(Walter Matthau played Lt. Garber in the early-seventies "classic"), not only does "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" pay tribute to the late actor, it also comments discreetly on colorblind casting, in which a "man of color" can play a role originally written for a white actor, as Washington did in a fairly recent Broadway production of William Shakespeare's "Julius Cesar" where he played Brutus.