In an era where a group of people in grave danger sold tickets The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is small scale compared to stuff like The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and Airport. The film is practically a real time film about a group of hijackers led by Mr. Blue (the intense Robert Shaw) that take over the New York subway train out of Pelham as 1:23 PM. The hijackers begin a dialogue with transit authority Lt. Garber (Walter Matthau) where they reveal their demands: one million dollars in cash delivered in one hour or they start killing a hostage a minute. The film becomes a race against time to get one step ahead of the hijackers AND to get the money to the train in such a short time period.
Since this film is real time it lends to the thrill of watching everything unfold before us on the screen. It's a confined space throughout the film as we see race after race to save as many hostages as possible. Director Joseph Sargent keeps the action flowing without overwhelming us with too much too fast. The cast is excellent, making you feel like you're watching a bunch of well seasoned New York public servants going through the intense two hours that afternoon. Martin Balsam's role as a fellow hijacker is a surprising turn for the actor and he gives us a great performance that is almost as memorable as Shaw's psychotic Blue.
I guess we could call this a disaster picture. It's just a scaled down version and comparing it to the larger films of the day this one is more thrilling, better acted, and more believable than the others. A great film that combines the disaster genre with the 1970's New York films that everyone enjoys. A classic cops and robbers flick.
Street Kings is about a dirty cop named Tom (Keanu Reeves) who suddenly realizes the err of his ways and works to fix things. And then changes his mind. Then changes it again. He changes his mind yet again. Repeat. The main problem with Tom is that his demeanor changes so often that you realize it's to make the story more interesting than it really is.
Tom's in a world of hurt from internal affairs and his old partner who know the evil that this man has done. After the partner is killed in an attack Tom feels guilt over his death- sometimes. And as he begins to dig toward the truth he finds out the unit he is part of (led by Forest Whitaker) is- surprise- corrupt. As you can tell the plot is paper thin because Tom is supposed to be out righting the wrongs of his unit AND is shocked because his unit is taking bribes and being bad little boys in general. The flip flopping of the lead character also drags this film to the depths of crap. The acting (even Keanu for once) is actually pretty good. It's just the damn story fails in so many ways. An interesting idea that falls to pieces.
Ah, the holy grail of Matthew McConaughey shirtless flicks. I'm not even going to go over the plot of this film because there is no plot. There's just this massive, disemboweled thing quivering on screen for 75 minutes (there's 10 minutes of credits and goat footage at the end. I shit you not). This film is so horrible that if someone had shown it to a prisoner at Gitmo then said person showing this film would justly be put on trial for crimes against humanity. Yes, this movie is an unholy thing that needs to be purged from society at once. Gregory Peck should stab this fucking thing at the altar to make sure there are no sequels. I've caught myself drooling since watching this film, not that I'm hot for the stars bod, but I've been rendered brain damaged by this steaming piece of shit film. I'm learning to use the left side of my body again and I've almost stopped shitting my pants. This film kills more brain cells than Lee Harvey Oswald.
