The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Simple enough remake of a 70s hostage thriller with Walter Matthua pitted against Robert Shaw here revisioned as Denzel Washington and John Travolta vehicle has opening momentum before sputtering in the final act. Well made in the Tony Scott signature style of whoosh-editing and dropped or frozen frames The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is a one-time affair. Once you've seen it you'll feel no need to revisit familiar terrain.
The film relentlessly pounds like a love letter ode to modern day New York City only with razor sharp editing, slowed down and distorted with an end effect that blurs or otherwise obscures the skyscraper landscape. There are occasional flourishes but nothing that elevates the film to, say, Speed-level suspense.
Washington (meek at first anyway civil servant Walter Garber) operates the mic at the subway transit command center that overseas the Lexington Street line that includes the Pelham car that's been hijacked by Ryder (Travolta who gets off a few angry lines) and his crew. The whole verbal negotiation, aside from brief appearances by police negotiator John Turturro and mayor James Gandolfini, consists of Ryder and Garber probing each other's psyche. At times Scott seems to add life to the characters of the hostages, a genre convention that worked in films like Red Eyer or Speed, but beyond a few lines (one guy needs to pee, another woman asks the big dude to help) the prisoners of the train are sketchy.
One main difference in the remake involves Garber's past and this leads to a resolution in the third act that is meant to redeem him. Without going into specifics that's where the film really derails. Things are tense during the first two-thirds but once the movie leaves the tunnel for the George Washington Bridge the action becomes rote.