The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1998 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1998)
Directed by	Félix Enríquez Alcalá
Produced by	Edgar J. Scherick
Written by	John Godey(novel)Peter Stone(earlier screenplay) April Smith (teleplay)
Starring	Edward James Olmos Vincent D'Onofrio Donnie Wahlberg Richard Schiff
Music by	Stewart Copeland
Cinematography	Félix Enríquez Alcalá
Editing by	Robert A. Ferretti
Distributed by	Trilogy Entertainment Group
Release date(s)	1 February , 1998 (USA)
Running time	100 min
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a television movie remake of the 1974 film of the same title starring Edward James Olmos.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production details
4 Reception

[edit] Plot

Edward James Olmos plays Detective Anthony Piscotti, a New York City police officer. He is trying to crack the hijacking of a subway train where the bad guys are holding the passengers for ransom.

[edit] Cast

Edward James Olmos as Detective Anthony Piscotti
Vincent D'Onofrio as Mr. Blue
Richard Schiff as Mr. Green
Donnie Wahlberg as Mr. Gray
Lisa Vidal as Babs Cardoza
Kenneth Welsh as Caz Hollowitz
Lorraine Bracco as Det. Ray
Louis Del Grande as Frank Stonehouse

[edit] Production details

The film is a remake, with Edward James Olmos in the Walter Matthau role and Vincent D'Onofrio replacing Robert Shaw as the senior hijacker. Although not particularly well received by critics or viewers, this version was reportedly more faithful to the book specifically in the rigging of the hijacked train for the getaway. It was also devoid of the quirky humor that made the original so memorable.

Since the film was produced much later than the original, there are also additions to the movie that did not exist in the original. For example, one of the characters sets up an IBM ThinkPad laptop computer, connected wirelessly to a motion detector that he places on the track. Later in the film another character views the screen to see an approaching person, whom he confronts in the tunnel. The ransom demand in the remake was $5 million as opposed to $1 million in the original movie and the novel.

The film was shot in Toronto's TTC subway system, mainly using the system's only abandoned station platform Bay (TTC), St. Andrew (TTC) station and Museum (TTC) station, and two of a class of older cars being retired by the TTC. The two cars were shipped by road to the scrapyard the day after filming ended, still disguised as New York cars.

The Toronto subway cars used for filming cannot operate singly, so a two-car set was used. A phoney cab was built on the other end of H-1 H-series (Toronto subway car) car 5482 to simulate single car operation. The single car supposedly detached from the front of the train can be seen on several occasions to be part of a train of at least two cars. The most obvious cases are when rounding curves: once when first moving forward after being detached, and later when Anthony has just figured out the hijackers' plan.

[edit] Reception

Many fans of the New York City Subway (locally termed railfans) despise the newer version, often calling it "The Taking of Bloor-Danforth One Two Three" after the Toronto subway line it was filmed on.^{[citation needed]}