I am a firm believer of “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it”. Many good movies can be remade into better movies, just look at Infernal Affairs and The Departed. But the perfect ones, like The Taking of Pelham 123, do not need remakes in the usual sense. They stand the test of time all on their own. So the only other reason to remake a movie like this as a test of skill for the filmmakers and the actors. In that sense, Tony Scott’s remake is quite effective, but not on the same league as the original.

Based on the novel by the same name, it starts off around 1:30 when a group of men get onto a subway car and immediately hijack it. They park it between two stations and settle in for negotiations. Their leader (John Travola), quickly takes control and sets the terms to the man at the control hub, the disgraced public servant Walter Garber (Denzel Washington). He wants a lot of cash in one hour or he’s going to start killing hostages. This man means business and doesn’t waste time proving it.  The city, with not many options available to them, decides to pay, but something is not right. How do these money-driven terrorists plan to get away?

As the city gets the money together, Garber and the leader, who calls himself Ryder, form a sort of bond while talking. Garber tries to pry anything from Ryder that will help them identify him or his gang. Ryder is playing a game of psychological warfare with the police. The tension builds as things go wrong on both sides and Ryder starts to get restless and just when the movie is almost getting tedious, the money shows up and the next twist happens.

The success of the story in both the original and the remake is the conflict between the criminal and the everyman. The criminal is smart, manipulative and thorough. The everyman is brave, sharp, and lucky. The original’s real brilliance comes with the casting of Walter Matthau as the everyman and Robert Shaw as the criminal. The remake also makes great casting decisions as Washington’s Garber is a schlep just trying to get through the day.  Even his wife bosses him around just before he goes to battle. This is the first time I have ever bought Mr. Washington in this kind of role. He has way too much commanding presence to pull off roles like these and just how he does it here is beyond me. Travolta does bad unlike most others, primarily because he always seems to enjoy playing heavies. The zeal he showed in movies like Broken Arrow and Face/Off shows up in spades. Other great performances here come from John Turturro as a hostage negotiator who helps Garber pull Ryder out of his shell and James Gandolfini as one of the most enjoyably wicked politicians in recent film; a mayor who really doesn’t want to show care and concern for his citizens, but can’t seem to get away from those damned cameras.

This is yet another sign of the end of the fear of terrorism, where terrorist acts are done for money than political or religious ideology. Some might say that this is a careless representation in the post 9/11 world, but I think it’s another part of the healing process to know that we are not allowing the past to dictate the art of our future.

Director Tony Scott has done a decent job with a needless remake. On it’s own terms, it is exciting and the performances are pretty good. I has toned down his wild-man visuals he did in Man on Fire and Domino, but matures it a little, keeping himself from going scatter-brained. But in a way, his constraint holds the movie back, since going insane on this movie would have made it more unique and admirable. The original was simple and direct, even the music was simple and to the point. The remake needed to wade as far from the original as possible and didn’t do it exactly. But what he does do, he does it well.

All in all, I can recommend this remake, but if you have the chance to see the original 1974 version, go that way. I don’t know if it’s sad that with all the technical advances in filmmaking they couldn’t make this movie more exciting or it’s amazing that a movie with very little visual appeal was able to spellbind it’s audience using only performances and a great plot device.