The taking of pelham 123

The Taking of Pelham 123.
Denzel Washington and John Travolta

I am in awe of John Travolta as a bad guy, especially the gangster type, replete with tattoos, bohemian hair-cut and cuss words. From Quetin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction to his tag team with Nicholas Cage, who happens to be losing his grip in his film selections lately, in Face Off, to this latest unlikely team with Denzel, Travolta seems to cut the physique of a bad guy better for me than he does of the imperial hero who literarily saves the day.
A film adapted from a novel by John Godey of a selfsame title. From the title, one can infer that it inclines towards a terrorist hijack of some sort. It turns out to be a mercenary enterprise carefully wrought with stock exchange manipulations and ransom demands.
Denzel seemed to be shoveled between ends. He is a train operator with a previous history of alleged bribery currently being investigated and ill-luck of being the operator of the train being held hostage. But trust Denzel, you would get always get a stellar, even near perfect, performance.
Like in all sensational films, there is the part “Providence” plays. Providence being the rough edges of the story smoothened by authorial intrusions towards preservation of the protagonist’s glory. For instance, providence puts a teenager with a laptop with webcam who transmits the ongoing events to national television. Providence makes things go awry with the ransom car, etc.
One can’t but question the predictability of the plot but I really felt Denzel’s wife response when he informed her via telephone that he would personally deliver the ransom money to the hoodlums. Now she didn’t say be careful or anything that implied that, she said he should pick up milk on his way back home. Now that, for me, is a courageous thing to say. And is perhaps my most thrilling scene in the movie.
The taking of Pelham 123 is not a great movie, it’s a good one and it does what most movies should: thrill you and engage you for a few hours.