Taking of the Pelham One Two Three

Taking of the Pelham One Two Three is a decent crime thriller. It isn’t likely to blow any modern viewer away but it’s still a reasonably compelling few hours of entertainment. Made in the 1970s and set in then contemporary New York, this movie reflects the gritty, graffitied version of the city of that era, similar to Taxi Driver or Death Wish. In this dirty, crime stricken, and corrupt version of New York, a very small group of hijackers seize a single car of a subway train in New York City in order to hold its passengers hostage for a $1 million dollar payday, or the equivalent of about $4.5 million in today’s money. The resulting tale of casually racist transit cops, a self-serving and corrupt mayor, endangered hostages, and merciless mercenaries is intriguing but surprisingly dry.

Everything is quite grounded, avoiding the bombast of its 2009 remake and providing a much higher level of realism. On the other hand, this groundedness can make the film seem a bit tame and on the nose. The hijackers plan is so incredibly straightforward and simple. This isn’t a ploy to disguise something bigger or more clever, like Inside Man or Die Hard With A Vengeance. The only secret to the plan is how the hijackers intend to escape from a train car whose location is monitored in transit control, and from subway tunnels with limited and fixed egress locations. In fact, this mystery of how the villains intend to get away with it ends up the main captivating story element of the movie. The ultimately irony, then, is that despite Taking of the Pelham One Two Three being largely told from the perspective of the transit police and their efforts to end the hostage situation with as few casualties as possible, the movie is more of a reminder of what is so compelling about heist films than it is an example of excellence in the genre of hostage thrillers. The antagonists are so clever, their leader so urbane and charismatic, and their plot so daring that you almost find yourself rooting more for them than for the cops trying to stop them.

Part of the film’s dryness also stems from its uneven usage of tension. Thrillers like this thrive on tension. Unfortunately for Pelham, the straightforwardness of the hijackers plans is largely met with straightforward responses by the transit cops and other authority figures and as a result, there isn’t much room for surprise. The punitive hero of the piece, Lt. Garber of the transit police, is working to keep the hostages alive and eventually plays an important role in unraveling the hijackers plans, but in so many ways this, especially the latter bit, feel like an afterthought in the plotting of the movie. Things don’t ebb and flow between our heroes and the hijackers, raising and lowering tension as some attempts to navigate the fraught situation succeed and others fail, but rather plod carefully forward to the inevitable moment when the hijackers have their money and must exit their car and attempt to slip into the anonymous New York crowds.

The movie is not devoid of tension generating impediments. When the car carrying the ransom money crashes as the deadline approaches, it creates one of the few standout moments of building tension. However, too frequently the dynamic between Garber and the kidnappers is that of a holding pattern. I think this is why films like this so frequently involve a hostage negotiator character. They have, or at least give the appearance of having, agency in all their interactions with the bad guys and that makes the audience invested in how they might bring this whole thing to an end, hopefully without much bloodshed. While Garber’s over-radio banter is similar to that of a hostage negotiator, that push and pull dynamic between negotiator and criminal(s) common in more modern takes on this genre isn’t present and it makes the film feel more flat as a result.

The underlying plot, especially the uniqueness of the hijack target, is very compelling. It isn’t hard to see why there have been three different adaptations of the original book by the same name. And of the two I’ve seen, this is the better film. It’s also no mystery why Tarantino likely borrowed the color-coded criminal aliases from this film for his directorial debut: Reservoir Dogs. Taking the Pelham One Two Three has a certain look and a certain attitude that is magnetic. It captures the grittiness of New York in the 70s with pitch perfect tone and its villains are as intriguing as they are dastardly. It just doesn’t deliver quite the thrills one expects from this genre. It is a tad too linear, a tad too dry, and the result is less a roller coaster of tension and release and more a bullet train to the end… and not in a good way.

Would Recommend: If you are into stories about hijacking trains, a surprisingly rich subgenre, as this is one of the best.

Would Not Recommend: If your favorite thing is a third act twist that reveals the criminal’s plot is even deeper and cleverer than you initially thought.