Director: Tony Scott
Starring: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, James Gandolfini, John Turturro, Luis Guzman, Victor Gojcaj, Michael Rispoli, Ramon Rodriguez, John Benjamin Hickey, Alex Kaluzhsky, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Katherine Sigismund, Jake Siciliano, Jason Butler Harner, Gary Basaraba, Tonye Patano, Aunjanue Ellis
Cert: 15
Region: B
Length: 106mins
Video: AVC, 1080p, 2.35:1
Audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Languages: English, German, Italian
Subtitles: English, English (HOH), Dansk, Suomi, Italian, Norsk, German, Svenska, Hindi, Turkish
Number of Discs: 1

This new version of The Taking of Pelham 123 - a remake of a 1974 hostage thriller set on board a subway train - marks the fourth collaboration between OCD director Tony Scott and 'A-lister most likely to gatecrash your wedding' Denzel Washington. These two obviously enjoyed running around on the train tracks as they're currently working on Unstoppable together, another rail-related thriller. While Washington, here playing the hero, is always good value and Travolta (as the villain) is the best he's been since the criminally underrated A Love Song For Bobby Long, Pelham 123 follows the thriller rule book just a little too closely, leaving us with two excellent performances all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Silly John, we're meant to be able to tell how long's left in your films by how dishevelled your hair gets.

The updated script by Brian Helgeland, who previously worked with Scott on Man on Fire, sees Walter Matthau's grizzled transit cop replaced by Denzel's podgy dispatcher, while Robert Shaw's suave hijacker becomes Travolta's angry, tattooed ex-con. Instead of a million dollars, the bounty now stands at ten (inflation, you see. The villains from the 1998 TV movie charged five). Money aside, the set-up is much the same: A gang of criminals hijack a subway train and demand the city pay them a hefty ransom or else they'll start killing passengers. Walter Garber (Washington) is the lucky guy who gets the call from their leader, who identifies himself merely as 'Ryder'. Since Garber is currently under investigation for allegedly taking a bribe, Ryder sees him as a brother in arms and thereafter refuses to deal with outsiders such as James Gandolfini's Mayor of New York or John Turturro's hostage negotiator (he obviously saw Transformers 2. We wouldn't trust him after that either).

One of the train passengers is able to broadcast footage of the gang to the outside world via his laptop while elsewhere across town the authorities fumble to drive the ransom money to the drop site in a suped-up cop car at rush hour. "Why the hell didn't we use a helicopter?" Gandolfini wonders in retrospect - The answer is that Tony Scott fancied plonking some pointless vehicular carnage into the story, that's why. He needn't have bothered, especially as the best moments in the film involve the main characters simply talking to each other on their walkie talkies. Once Denzel leaves his booth to personally deliver the ransom money to Ryder, you can easily guess the outcome. Our man Washington may have piled on the pounds to play Walter Garber (aka Joe Everyman) but since Scott mostly shoots him from the neck up, you never really notice his beer gut anyway.