The Taking of Pelham 123 is a B-movie with A-list talent. This same film could have gone direct to video had it starred actors of lesser caliber than Denzel Washington and John Travolta, and been helmed by a less slickly competent director than Tony Scott. But watching Washington and Travolta spar as, respectively, a Manhattan transit worker and a murderous hijacker, is a lot of fun even if the movie fades from memory mere minutes after it’s over.
Scott directed Washington in Crimson Tide, pairing him with Gene Hackman, and seems to be going for the same level of gravitas and tension here. But Pelham never approaches that film’s heights in part because the stars spend almost the entire running time separated from each other. They generate sparks, but from a distance.
Meet Me In Montauk 