Review of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

This film has been imitated, ripped-off and unsuccessfully remade, and every one of them only serves to further enhance what a wonderful movie this is. Peter Stone's screenplay is vastly superior to the original John Godey novel, adding better characterizations and a healthy dose of wit (the scenes involving the bedridden mayor and his aides is a hilarious indictment of New York City bureaucracy; also priceless is Walter Matthau's reaction when he realizes the Chief Inspector is black). This is one movie where the occasional excesses of profanity seem natural and understandable, and not gratuitous. But then again, this film has an air of pseudo-believability which none of it's imitators like "Speed" have ever possessed. There is no girlfriend or wife of the police lieutenant on the train to complicate things; there is no cliche ridden invented romance on the fly; there is no heroic stopping of the train through a death-defying feat by the lead. You just get the sense of how the real-life professionals would try to respond to a crisis like this.

Robert Shaw, in his last role before "Jaws", shows what a wonderful actor he was as the ringleader of the hijackers. It is cold, methodical villainy at its finest.