The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Short description
A New York City subway dispatcher named Walter Garber finds his ordinary workday upended when armed men seize a train and hold its passengers hostage. The group's leader, Ryder, demands a large ransom and warns that the captives will be killed if his terms are not met quickly. Garber, whose knowledge of the transit system becomes his main asset, is drawn into a direct exchange with Ryder even as police and city officials try to manage the crisis. A police negotiator and the mayor are among those working to resolve the standoff.
The film is a remake of the 1974 thriller Pelham One Two Three, relocated to a contemporary New York setting. Tony Scott directed it, the fifteenth of the sixteen features he made. It followed Déjà Vu (2006) and preceded Unstoppable (2010). Brian Helgeland wrote the screenplay. Denzel Washington plays Garber and John Travolta plays Ryder, with John Turturro as Lieutenant Camonetti, Luis Guzmán as Phil Ramos and James Gandolfini as the mayor.
Produced with a budget of about 100 million dollars, the film took in roughly 150 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.4 from about 217,000 votes, and on TMDB it also rates 6.4, from some 3,500 votes. A critics' score of 5.7 from 225 reviews sits below those audience figures.
What's left behind the scenes
- For a long time, the New York Transportation Authority has not scheduled train departures from Pelham for 1:23 AM and 1:23 PM. There is no formal prohibition, but out of superstition, dispatchers still try to avoid scheduling departures for those times.
- John Travolta chose not to participate in the film's promotional campaign with the rest of the creative team because he had not yet fully recovered from the death of his son at the age of 16.
- The film's title comes from a dispatching tradition. When a New York subway train sets off, it is assigned a call sign according to the time and station of departure; in this case, it is Pelham, 1:23.
- To realistically portray Ryder, Tony Scott specifically sought out several people who had been in prison for the crime committed by John Travolta's character.
- John Travolta and his entourage emerge from the subway – specifically, track 61, located beneath the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. It wasn’t built specifically for Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), but during World War II, the US President used it to enter and leave the hotel to reach his personal train, and to keep secret the fact that he used a wheelchair.
- The film is based on John Godey’s novel “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” (1973).
- The filmmakers worked closely with the city's transportation authorities and even had access to the traffic control center.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
