June 4, 2009, - 1:23 pm
By Debbie Schlussel
. . . “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta. This is a remake of a 1974 flick, starring Walter Matthau and Martin Balsam. Doubt the original has digs at Rudy Giuliani (or Wall Street–if you’ve seen it, does it?). Will try to see it to compare, before my review is posted a week from tomorrow, when the movie debuts. Stay tuned. In the meantime, here’s the trailer:
Actually, the original made Ed Koch look like a total moron. If they do half of that to Guiliani, I wouldn’t want to be him (well, I wouldn’t want to be him anyway, but whatever).
It looks like Travolta is way more over the top in that role than Hector Alizondo was. Then again, it’s been 35 years. Travolta’s style wouldn’t have worked back then.
Btw, when did your sister go to Ida Crown? I went there, too. Love your column.
starLisa on June 4, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Oops, My bad. I guess it was making fun of Abe Beame, and not Ed Koch. Koch wasn’t mayor yet. And it wasn’t Hector Alizondo, it was Robert Shaw.
Never mind.
starLisa on June 4, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Actually enjoyed this one…Travolta plays a good psycho charecter. As far as the Rudy digs are concerned, I don’t think they were mean spirited at all.
trewsdetroit on June 5, 2009 at 7:26 am
The original was good, as is the book. Of course, both movies are different in some ways from the original book story, but all good. It looks like the 2nd movie has differences from the first movie (which is to be expected of course).
I had also thought the original movie was making fun of Koch- I didn’t remember Mayor Beame- and the guy in the movie looks like Koch. Wonder why they don’t make fun of Bloomy instead of Rudy?
Doda McCheesle on June 5, 2009 at 10:20 am
Going to see this one tonight, I have actually been looking forward to seeing Pelham. Something tells me it will be your cliche’ filled action movie though.
I noticed the original was being shown On-Demand. I almost clicked watch but I didn’t want to spoil the movie tonight.
Also, “Bill” from Kill Bill aka Kung Fu star David Carradine was found dead in his hotel room today.
trewsdetroit on June 4, 2009 at 2:24 pm