(Run time: 106 min. - Directed by: Tony Scott - Starring: John Travolta, Denzel Washington)

The Taking of Pelham 123 is the new, somewhat entertaining, cat-and-mouse, action movie starring two of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Set in New York this hostage/ransom flick has all the star power it needed but lacks the big bang you want to feel when watching this type of adrenaline tale.

The rundown goes like this…

Walter Garber, played by Denzel Washington, is a longtime New York subway veteran. On this particular day he’s working a very unlucky post in the Transit Authority’s Control Room. Because when a team of criminals lead by a man simply named Ryder, played by John Travolta, nothing about today is going to go as planned.

Ryder and his crew take subway car Pelham 123 and its passengers hostage. Their demands, 10 million dollars cash delivered to them in the subway within 1 hour. After that, one passenger or as Ryder calls them “commodity” will be killed for each delinquent minute.

A kind of entertaining twist of personal “digging” takes place between Walter and Ryder. Ultimately leading them to be on the same level with each other in some weird way. But, as the movie tries to wrap up it quickly loses its luster and its storyline quickly goes flat.

When its all said and done you might feel a little let down with this one as it sort of just ends. Nothing real exciting just a simple wrapping up of events in as conservative of a manner as possible.

As far as the acting goes it was a slam dunk all the way around. Pelham just needed more help in the story

Go ahead and check this one out for yourself but just don’t get too excited about it or else you might find yourself asking them to “take” Pelham back quicker than you can count 123.