Maverick Director Tony Scott Helms “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3” 0
Posted on
May 12, 2009 by
laszlo
To hear director Tony Scott explain it, his updating of the hostage drama The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is a total “reinvention” of the 1974 thriller widely considered one of the decade’s classic films.
To wit, the casting: Who better to replace Walter Matthau’s wisecracking Transit Police lieutenant than the baronial Denzel Washington? (Except now, the character’s a disgraced subway dispatcher.) John Travolta chews scenery in the lead terrorist part that an icy Robert Shaw inhabits in the original. And James Gandolfini puts some psychic distance between himself and Tony Soprano portraying the new movie’s beleaguered mayor.