Customer Reviews

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three [Blu-ray] [1974]

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Don't waste time with the Tony Scott shakycam remake of PELHAM 123 which was a massive disappointment - stick with the 1974 original, which is WAY better and I will say seems a lot more realistic for the most part and also gets one thing right that other train disaster movies/thrillers don't - the Deadman's Feature. Watch closely, they find a way around it!! Anyway, the story concerns hijackers who hold the mayor of New York to ransom for a few million dollars(!) by taking a subway car loaded with passengers who give this movie some amusing moments at times with the various reactions to their situation, surprisingly and take on their own character in their own way. Walther Matthau is on top form as Lieutenant Garber, the NY transit cop who has to negotiate with the hijackers and stop passengers getting killed while all around him subway employees and local cops make things difficult. Robert Shaw is the hijacker gang leader who is also suitably chilling. Watch out as well for Martin Balsam and Hector Elizondo(THE PRINCESS DIARIES, CHICAGO HOPE) in supporting roles helping out Shaw. I can't help thinking as well that their codenames, based on colors, might have inspired Tarantino with RESERVOIR DOGS character names!

There are plenty of exciting and suspenseful moments as well - the NYPD's attempt to get the money across town to the hijackers while Lt Garber tries to prevent the killing of a hostage, and the ending and final nail-biting climax isn't quite what you'd expect. What's also interesting is that this movie was shot on NY subway property and at the start you get a bit of insight into how things work in a scene featuring a trainee driver and a group of visiting Tokyo subway bosses . . . which does have an amusing punchline when Garber makes a slightly bigoted comment! So this will also appeal to subway/train enthusiasts as well in many ways.

Overall, I can't recommend this enough!!

The 70's were a fertile period for thrillers..."French Connection", "Dirty Harry", "Charley Varrick", etc. In my opinion "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" is the best of the lot. It thrills like no other movie of the period, everything gels, the script, the direction the music (oh the music, hats off to David Shire for scoring the the best ever twelve tone funk score), the editing, the locale, the cast. And what a locale...this must be the best New York-based film ever; I suspect New Yorkers look at this and go..yeah that's us alright. The characters and the script are a joy...the film is densely populated but even the most minor of characters are graced with eminently quotable lines, and the casting..Walter Matthau rounds off his run of "straight" roles in the early 70's with a fabulous turn here, all sarcastic wit and scathing come-backs..Robert Shaw turns in highly believable perfomance as a mercenary turned hijacker in what must be the prototype of the Brit-as-bad-guy cycle that everyone thinks started with Die Hard...and Jerry Stiller (Ben's Dad) has a good time as Patrone the world-weary and sarcastic transit cop. But the list is endless, the mayor, his aide, the chief of police, the hostages, everyone is outstanding. The script, by Peter Stone is a masterclass in entertaining exposition. It is also frequently laugh-out-loud funny...the humour deriving not from the wish to turn the film into a comedy, but rather the fact that Stone has given these guys a rich sense of humour that naturally develops as the frenetic events unfold. In fact, the juxtaposition of the humour and hard-edged thrills is what makes this film work over and over again...you laugh at a genuinely funny line and then are thrust into (for instance) a frantic, heart-pounding, cross-city race against time and you're in a such great mood because of the wit of the scipt just beforehand, that the action is heightend and your involverment is likewise increased; and that good-vibe/hard action momentum just snowballs all through the movie. In all, this is an essential purchase for anyone who enjoys pared down, superbly scripted thrills. A five-star classic.

This is not a review of the movie, which is great. The one star is for the blu ray disc. I bought a copy of this from a store and not amazon, but felt I should leave a review here as a warning to others. This disc would not even play in 2 out of three blu ray players I have tried it in. The one player that I got the disc to eventually play in the movie kept skipping and was totally unwatchable. Looking at the other reviews here with similar issues, I would say that there is a bad batch of these discs, although looking at one of the reviews there may actually be some decent copies out there. My advice: avoid, or get the import version.

Four men armed with machine guns hijack a New York City subway train, throwing the city into chaos. They threaten to kill a hostage every minute unless the city of New York pays them one million dollars. Lt. Zachary Garber (Walter Matthau), a New York City Transit Authority policeman, is bemused by the idea of anyone hijacking a subway train, since they can't take it anywhere the transit authority won't know about. He sets about investigating the crooks and their methods, whilst the city rushes to get the money to the hijackers before people start dying.

The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three was released in 1974 and was a hit, its mix of New York cynical humour along with a strong thriller element proving to be a winning formula. Whilst based on the 1973 novel of the same name by John Godey, it alters some details of the story to make it more dramatic, most notably the memorable ending to the film.

Taking is a very effective movie, building tension throughout due to its use of audio exchanges between the transit authority and the hijackers, and the feeling that the hijackers are one step ahead of the police. There are some very influential ideas in this movie, notably the hijackers using colours as code-names (later borrowed by Quentin Tarantino for Reservoir Dogs), whilst there are some visual homages to the movie in Die Hard with a Vengeance. It's also nicely educational, with the audience learning probably more than it ever wanted to know about safety features on a subway network.

The heart of the movie, though, is the ongoing audio showdown between Walter Matthau's world-weary transit cop and Robert Shaw as the ruthless, calm, collected leader of the hijackers. The battle of wits between these two is superbly portrayed by two actors at the top of their game, and remains absolutely compelling. There are also some very accomplished supporting performances from the likes of Jerry Stiller, Martin Balsam and Julius Harris. The movie adds to what could have been a very straightforward story by including a subplot about the ill New York City mayor and how his hopes for re-election depend on how he handles the crisis.

All-in-all, The Taking of Pelham-One-Two-Three (*****) has barely aged a day and is a classic thriller, well worth tracking down. Two, frankly unnecessary, remakes also exist, a 1998 TV movie staring Edward James Olmos and a more recent 2009 movie starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta. The original is all you need. It is available now in the UK and USA.

This is without question one of the best thrillers of the decade. Unique I feel in the genre for its mix of comedy and violence. Similar but superior to Arthur Hillers much underrated Silver Streak.The combination of the world weary Walter Matthau and Roberts Shaws ice cold crook is I feel the balance that makes the film work so well. The supporting cast are all excellent including Ben Stillers dad Jerry. Any completists reading this you have to buy this DVD and give it pride of place in your seventies thriller collection. Its a crying shame its about to be remade there has already been a ghastly low budget TV movie version. God knows what twenty first century Holllywood will make of this classic. Mincemeat I presume.

Do not bother with the current re-make of this film, it isn't a re-make it is just a film of the same name.

The original is one of my favourite films. Just a fantastic performance from Walter Matthau from start to finish. The soundtrack by David Shire alone would make this film a classic.

I don't think you could spend so little on such a brilliant film.

The Taking of Pelham 123 is a standout 1970s thriller for several reasons: It was well acted, had a taut and funny script, and it was welL directed with a music score that was enjoyable in its own right like so many of the better pictures made in that era. If I have any complaint, it was that the opening sequence lacks a little pace and the hijackers seem lacksadaisical as they actually apprehend the train. But then that was the whole point. Pelham 1-2-3 isn't so much hijacked as "taken", much in fact as you would take candy from a baby, and only possible because no one saw it coming. After all, as the train master himself remarks, "What the hell would anyone want to hijack a godamn subway train for?" So total is everyone's disbelief that a station supervisor, in a fit of pique, marches petulantly down the track in a misguided attempt to resolve the matter. "Why don't you go grab a goddamn aeroplane like everybody else?" he demands to know as he reaches the scene of the crime. And that's where the action really takes off.

The lack of gimmicks and whizz bang special is a relief in this feature. You really don't miss them, the director having clearly opted for down to earth realism over cheap minute by minute thrills in a ticker tape profile depiction of fast-paced New York City life in the 70s that is at once credible, endearing and highly entertaining.

Pelham 123 is a perfect example of what a highly polished director and a highly competent cast can do to a very good script in an otherwise average story with low level special effects. Kudos to the director and to Matthau, Shaw and Balsam among several others who put in excellent acting performances.

For me, the 70s were a golden era for film. With directors temporarily freed from the restrictions of the studio system, there was an outpouring of original drama, and many long-standing actors suddenly found themselves at the height of their powers.

Robert Shaw is one of those whose huge talent was best showcased in that era. The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 is sandwiched in between The Sting and Jaws on his resume, but deserves as much admiration as those two blockbusters. Shaw's character Mr Blue, a precursor to Tarantino's multicoloured mobsters, has a devious plan for a robbery, and only Walter Matthau's jaded subway controller can see what's happening deep beneath the city streets. Their fantastic scenes together are all the more remarkable for being conducted almost entirely over the phone. Shaw brings the steel, Matthau brings the New York grit and reminds us that it wasn't just Lemmon who could branch out into serious drama.

You can't really see Hollywood making a film like this today, there would have to be some sort of pyrotechnic explosion and chase across Central Park before the denouement. And there's the rub, as Pelham 1-2-3 delivers one of the best final scenes in cinema, and not a stuntman in sight.

Shaw would deliver a few more heavyweight performances before his untimely death, but for director Joseph Sargent this was the highlight of a long, mainly TV, career. The DVD is Widescreen, but sadly only contains the original mono soundtrack. It would be nice to see a remastered version, but this transfer still delivers the goods.

Sadly, after receiving this item and trying it on 2 separate players, the disc will not load at all. There are numerous other reviews here stating the same problem, so presumably it's either a disc manufacturing error or something related with the firmware of Blu-ray players. Both of the players I tried the disc in were fully up to date btw. Hopefully this can be resolved or the disc recalled and fixed. Very annoying!

I knew there were disk problems with this release a few months ago but when Amazon started re-selling this recently I thought that perhaps these issues were resolved.
Unfortunately not. The disk will not load at all and I get an 'Unknown' disk error.