The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)

The film that influenced Quentin Tarantino enough to name his crew's code names in Reservoir Dogs (1992) after the villains of this piece, Joseph Sargent’s terrific seventies thriller is one of the finest of the decade. It was a time when paranoia was gripping thrillers; The Parallax View was released the same year, followed a year later by Three Days Of The Condor. All of these were topped by All The President’s Men (1976) a film that was far superior to Parallax and Condor in my humble opinion. While The Taking Of Pelham 123 isn’t in the same paranoid ballpark as these thrillers, it’s a more solid and enjoyable affair than Parallax or Condor, as Robert Shaw takes control of a subway train with some armed baddies and holds the Mayor of New York to ransom. The film is knowingly comedic throughout, but is able to maintain the thrills and laughs side by side until its knee-slapping finale. It reminded me somewhat of No Way Back (1995) funnily enough, no action masterpiece, but a very solid thriller. Again, The Taking Of Pelham 123 is a better film, and the question I had at the end was, after bigging up Tony Scott recently, do I trust him enough to give his 2009 remake of Sargent’s thriller a thorough viewing?* *This review was written well before I'd seen the Tony Scott remake, which I did eventually decide to watch. So I did trust Tony Scott, and I still make him a very fine director- but his remake of this thriller is fairly pony. 8.0/10