What The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3  misses most is the messy authenticity of the 1974 original. To say that the film is marginally better than Tony Scott's previous works is only to admit that his creative mind suits an already absurd premise.

In this fast-moving thriller, a group of armed and tattooed crazies led by Ryder (John Travolta) hijack the titular subway and begin negotiating for 10 million dollars, to be paid within an hour. For each minute over that limit, they'll begin killing the hostages at one-minute intervals. On the other end of the two-way radio is Walter Garber (Denzel Washington), an MTA (Metropolitan Transport Authority) dispatcher who speaks into his microphone in such a quiet and reasonable manner. He returns Ryder's excessive demands with carefully controlled reactions. When the quick-tempered hostage negotiator Lt. Jack Cambria (John Turturro) from the NYPD shows up, Ryder goes irrational and demands Garber's return. Now it's up to the civil servant to solve the problem of the day.

With a lack of any redeeming messages to help justify the content, Washington's understatement and Travolta's wild-man dramatics cannot complement each other, and their mental sparring makes for another boring contest. They both are comfortable in characterizations we've seen them in many times before, though. Ryder's overall personality is just as erratic as his attitude toward faith. Even though now seemingly capable of anything, his history, like Garber's, is morally checkered. James Gandolfini shows his range in the role of the unnamed mayor as Turturro is equally unassertive as police negotiator.

Tension begins to build just minutes into this story, and doesn't let up until the credits roll. The story is relatively simple, and this remake of the 1974 Walter Matthau film follows the plot with very few surprises as the production demolishes its way through this classic ordeal. This film heads down a predictable track and ends up pretty much where you think it will go. The only unexpected motive in the plot proves highly implausible because it likely wouldn't work as well in reality as it does on screen.