The taking of Pelham 123 ...

[shropshire 0]

What the Fuck were they thinking?

The original was excellent and should have been left alone.

[/rant]

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[JerryBaumchen 1,468]

Hi shrop,

Have you read the book? It's even better.

Hey, Rocky Mountain High: Did I get it right?

JerryBaumchen

[quade 4]

In the original version the main character, Garber, is a transit police cop that is working the desk and in the new version Garber is the subway dispatcher. By making Garber the dispatcher, they've been able to garner more sympathy for him, but it literally runs the movie off the rails by creating huge third act issues.

1974 Garber the transit cop has a reason to pursue the bad guys.
2009 Garber the dispatcher has no reason whatsoever.

Regardless of the third act issues, it's a pretty good "Dude with a Problem" story. Travolta continues to be GREAT as an insane bad guy. Dialogue is snappy as hell too.

Also I thought, it actually holds fairly true to the "spirit" of the original. There is a certain irony in one issue though. Since Tarantino stole the idea of using "Mr. Color" as names for bad guys in Reservoir Dogs from the '74 version of "...123", when they made this version they had to abandon them.

It's also AMAZING to revisit the '74 version to see how far stereotypes in movies have changed for both the better and worse. '74 was right there in the midst of Women's Lib and the woman bashing in the '74 version is pretty relentless and completely without payoff. They make SUCH a big deal about it that with modern sensibilities applied you assume the person that is finally going to save the day is going to end up being a female cop.

Of course, it isn't.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[diablopilot 2]

Quote

What the Fuck were they thinking?

The original was excellent and should have been left alone.

[/rant]

+1

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