.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

I can sit in front of a big screen and recognize a Tony Scott film within minutes. His fast paced, multi-cut, zoom in/zoom out, blurry background, rotating camera work is dizzyingly his. He started to master his technique with Spy Game in 2001, and through Man on Fire, Domino and Déjà vu, he has done what no director would want - he has made all his films look exactly like the last.

I am not a fan of his style. I like to watch actors act and watching action being actioned. The format of Scott's choice takes you out of the film where the style overtakes the substance.

Scott is back behind the camera again with The Taking of Pelham 123, a remake of the 1974 Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw subway caper. The 2009 version has Denzel Washington in the Matthau role as Walter Garber, a New York City transit worker who just so happens to be at the control desk when a gang of gun-totting thugs lead by John Travolta steal a subway car and hold 19 persons hostage seeking ransom.

Travolta, going by the name of Ryder, is determined to get $10 million dollars from the city in one hour or he will start to kill off passengers every minute until his demands are met. As would be the case, in the one hour leading up the deadline, hostage negotiators (lead by John Turturro ), sharp shooters and the Mayor (played masterfully by James Gandolfini) become part of the convoluted mix.

Based on a script by Brian Helgeland (Mystic River), Tony Scott arguably has the best story he has had to work with since True Romance back in 1993. The story has been updated nicely from the original concept and both leads (Washington and Travolta) seem comfortable in their respective shoes. There is some intelligent banter and when the money is being delivered from the Federal Reserve to the train station via a troublesome police car procession, Gandolfini gives off one of the better lines I have heard in a film this summer with "Why didn't we use a helicopter".

The action sequences and pacing are also of note. There is a real tension in the air as the story unfolds and even though the two leads don't share the same screen time until late in the fourth act, they both convey chemistry on either side of their communication receivers.

But under the heavy hand of Scott, the film never breaks out of the simply average film grade. For all the pluses, there is a scene of a sharpshooter that fails his assignment thanks to a rat that runs up his pant leg and Garber's conversation with his wife about bringing home groceries while the baddies are minutes away from offing more passengers was too forced and emotionally unrealistic to be taken seriously. And don't get me started on Travolta's final line in the film - "You're my goddamn hero".

It's too bad. The Taking of Pelham 123 could have been a bona fide action hit. The elements were there. The script was relatively intelligent. But when you zip and whip your audience around for two hours, the style is the only thing that I remember three hours later. And I feel as sick as I would coming off a roller coaster ride.