Tuesday, March 6, 2012

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

In general, I have a neutral stance when it comes to remakes of movies. Sometimes the remakes is better, sometimes (actually more often) the original. Yesterday I was was watching the remake of "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three", the original with Walter Matthau & Robert Shaw from 1974, the remake from 2009 with Denzel Washington and John Travolta.


Wow, what a difference. The original has a good cast with two outstanding lead actors and the story develops nicely. The remake has an even better overall cast, but the performance is underwhelming, which I mainly blame on the script (not the actors). It simply seems that everything interesting about the original story has been stripped from the story, e.g. the military style gang (each of the gang members with some distinctive features), the trick employed by the motorman to overcome the dead-man's switch was much more detailed and finally the hunt for the fleeing gang is much more vivid.

Original:1 vs. Remake: 0

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