New Film: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)

Tony Scott's The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, from a Brian Helgeland screenplay, enlarges the case for its helmer as the living embodiment of the auteur theory, without also reaching the heights of the director's finest recent work, or even that of the film's highly entertaining 1974 namesake, from television director (and as far as this writer can speculate, non-auteur) Joseph Sargent. That Scott's latest might be compared unfavorably - in many, but certainly not all respects - to the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, demonstrates the inadequacy of the theory as an automatic generator of quality, without foreclosing against its ability to delineate discrete artistic interventions. Scott is indeed in the midst of what is unmistakably his major artistic period, of which his Pelham 1 2 3 is the latest example, without again attaining the same level as Enemy of the State (1998), Domino (2005), or the director's masterpiece, and one of the great American films of the decade about to conclude, Déjà Vu (2006). Yet for those inclined to the auteurist project of uncovering a discernible artistic presence in the director's chair, Scott's Pelham 1 2 3 will not disappoint, and will be for some, invigorating cinema.

Departing from the original in its relatively ersatz treatment of its New York setting - Sargent's near documentary emphasis on location in the 1974 Pelham One Two Three, by comparison, permitted its spectator to follow the action from station to station along the Lexington Ave. 6-train line - Scott's film rather adopts this location more for what it gets the narrative than for any local inspiration from the setting. (Scott is not another Spike Lee in this respect, with the key similarities between this film and Inside Man [2006], as film scholar Lisa K. Broad points out, aside.) What it allows for is the co-presence of the film's subway car hostage situation - with its status as a terrorist event contested, but ultimately affirmed by the film - and the nearby markers of the American financial system. Whereas Déjà Vu conjugated September 11th with the Oklahoma City bombing of the mid-90s and Hurricane Katrina (I will have much more to say about this film in the current issue of Film Criticism), Pelham 1 2 3 adds the financial sector crisis of 2008-2009 to the personal experience of terrorism shared by the passengers of United flight 93. If the inclusion of a financial sector meltdown signals the eclipse of interest in domestic terrorism for many Americans by the economy, the Anglo Scott nonetheless almost doggedly refuses to forget this decade's defining moment of trauma. His is a much more complete picture of contemporary America than most critics will be willing to concede or even intuit - in spite of its patched together portrait of the Five Boroughs.

Importantly, Scott's New York no longer experiences the surveillance of Enemy of the State's Washington, in its malignant form, nor Déjà Vu's New Orleans in its more benign variety, read into this what you will - perhaps that Americans no longer fear surveillance, though the director does visualize the abducted subway through a web cam conversation, which is the film's most direct attempt at transcribing newish technologies. Then again, there is likewise very little social or technological commentary in Sargent's original - on this basis one could argue for the superiority of Scott's film - save for its portrait of a rather impotent mayor figure; par for the course, certainly, when representing political figures circa 1974. Scott's Pelham 1 2 3 briefly pokes fun at Giuliani's crisis response without exactly providing a positive counter-example in James Gandolfini's philandering incarnation.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 does however shares Scott's previous masterpiece's Christian context, which thanks to Helgeland's screenplay perhaps, takes on a Catholic inflection - as did also the director's 2004, Helgeland-scripted Man on Fire. With explicit mention made of Ryder's (John Travolta) Catholic background - in discussions of original sin (Scott's film does admit the sinfulness of all its protagonists and antagonists) and confessionals - with the concluding cross shape visible over Denzel Washington's shoulder, and the latter's need to redeem himself through a selfless good work, Scott once again, though with a different screenwriter than the tandem he used for Déjà Vu, produces a Christian allegory out of his terror-inspired subject. And as with the earlier film, a new life will be offered to one of the film's characters. While in Déjà Vu this required the re-writing of the past, of "fate" through its science fiction conceit, Scott and Helgeland have effectively classicized their solution in Pelham 1 2 3.

Of course, the term 'classical' should as always be used sparingly and with reservations when discussing the films of Scott. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is certainly no exception with its rapid editing and cross-cutting, its frequent use of slow motion (with variable mimetic precision; this is one of many respects in which Déjà Vu proves the exceedingly superior work) and zooms, the film's tight close-ups filling half of the frame before very shallow depth, its manipulation of the color palette and its combination of pop music (the throbbing refrain of "99 Problems" is the first) and highly effective scoring. Scott's cinema exemplifies David Bordwell's "intensified continuity" every bit as much as it does the auteur theory introduced at the outset.