The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

One of the advantages of falling behind the current release schedule is that it allowed some of the new movies to make their out of the multiplexes and into other venues, one that I usually don't have a chance to visit when I stay up-to-date. Since I'm only going to be in New England a few more days, it was nice to have a chance to broaden my experience before leaving.

One such venue that I had missed was the Strand Theater in the little town of Clinton, just off Interstate 190 between Leominster and Worcester. I was thrilled to see that The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 was playing there, and on Saturday afternoon, during a break for my road trip preparations, I decided it was the perfect time to cross both the movie and the theater off my list.

I rolled into downtown Clinton at about six pm, with an hour before showtime. This gave me a chance to walk up and down the main drag and peruse the businesses, as well as to grab dinner at a pizza parlor. From the signs around town, it looked to be historically Irish-American, but like many towns in the area, it had plenty of businesses that catered to the new wave of Brazilian immigrants.

From both the marquee and the lobby, I could tell the theater was a real classic. It turns out to have been built in 1924. The tickets were only five dollars and fifty cents, which was quite nice.

Once I got inside, however, I realized that I'd been fooled by the placid exterior. I figured this was an aging and neglected beauty, but instead I learned the Strand had been converted into a "restaurant" theater. That is, in the main large auditorium, every fourth seat had been removed and replaced with a flat table for drinks and food. The concession stand served not only the regular theater fare of popcorn and snacks, but full meals and alcohol.

The crowd was quite ample for a Saturday night in a small town. It consisted largely of middle aged and older couples, as well as groups of older women. I found a comfortable seat on the aisle and settled in for the feature.

I was thoroughly prepared to detest this movie. Although it had been a while since I'd since the original 1974 version (directed by Jospeh Sargent), I was quite fond of it as one of the movies that epitomize a certain view of New York City in the 1970s---gritty and fraying around the edges (both in a physical and social sense), but nevertheless quite civil by the standards of today's action movies, all made funky by a David Shire soundtrack.

In particular I was all set to really detest John Travolta as Ryder. Whereas Robert Shaw had been the epitome of coolness, I expected a more Postmodern take from Travolta, with a full-on violent psycopath we expect today. There would be more flood, and lots more frenetic action, and society would be shown to have decayed greatly from the civilized toy world of the captive subway train of 1974.

The sped-up action of the streets of Manhattan over the opening credits seemed to confirm my suspicions. I was ready to start tallying up the ways that the movie disappointed me.

But I really got thrown a curve by the Scott brothers on this. In about twenty minutes, I had completely gotten over my earlier prejudice and accepted the movie as a valid retelling of the same story, from the perspective of now.

First off, there was the nice touch of updating the technology. The same story is necessarily going to work different in a world with cellphones and wireless Internet, and Scott's film tackled this without any shyness, integrating our new gadgets into the plot seemlessly.

But what really won me over was Travolta's performance. Yes he had the edginess of a psychopath, but I was actually won over by the character himself, who turned out to be far more sympathetic than Shaw's "Blue" in the 1974 version.

In this story, Ryder becomes a martyr and vehicle for an indictment against the greed and decadence of an out-of-control New York under the manipulation of gangster bankers. I was fully sitting up in my seat when I figured this out.

Instead of it being about Garber vs. Ryder, it was about Garber and Ryder vs. the Establishment, which had screwed over both of them. Or had it? Deznel Washington's Garber (the MTA controller) is a more complex character than the one Mathau portrays. He turns out to have secrets.

And this is where the plot actually really takes off. In the end, this becomes a story not about a heist, or even revenge by Ryder against those who wronged him, but about Ryder attempted to rehabilitate Garber. It is as if Ryder is disgusted with the entire crummy world. No one has honor. Everyone is a phony. His final victory is simply to get Garber to become honorable again (as was Mathau's character). Ryder hates the world because it has no heroes, and in the end he is willing to die to force Garber to be a hero.

Not bad. Not bad at all. I liked this movie more than a little.

The Strand was really cool too. I wish I had discovered it earlier, so I could enjoy the food and drinks there. Well, you never know...