A small group of men hijacks a subway and holds everyone hostage. The city of New York has merely one hour to respond with a ransom. Media quickly responds to it as if it is an act of terror, and the whole country is watching while the Mayor and police tries to resolve the situation.
In the middle of it all lands a sympathetic and intelligent dispatcher, Walter Garber (Denzel Washington), who despite of being a complete nobody tries his best to step up and negotiate as the hijackings mastermind Ryder (John Travolta) insists on only talking to him.
The setting is good for an interesting story, as Ryder is very Charismatic and he is a complex character which is both good and evil. Which makes him connect with Walter, which at first appears to be his exact opposite. Unfortunately it never really pulls through, and the interesting mix feels like it is carrying too much weight from it's original 1974 version from a time where badguys should be bad, and goodguys should be good. It seems like the actors wants to go in one direction, while the old fashioned story is predetermined to go another.
There's plenty of room for twists and turns in the movie, but sadly they never appear. I was in fact surprised by the lack of twists rather than surprised by twists. It all feels a bit outdated, only with some Internet and some cell phones thrown in, but I am sure it was quite fresh back in the '70s.
Travolta delivers a pretty good performance though, although his character fails to be believable, it is like it is meant for another story. You'd think that with big actor names the movie would have some spectacular moments, like massive mayhem and destruction CG of some sort, but instead it all looks pretty much budget. They even used some animations with flyovers in Manhattan that seems to be captured from Google Earth. That's something I would expect to find on YouTube.
If no big name actors in it, you would never think twice calling this a B-movie.
In the middle of it all lands a sympathetic and intelligent dispatcher, Walter Garber (Denzel Washington), who despite of being a complete nobody tries his best to step up and negotiate as the hijackings mastermind Ryder (John Travolta) insists on only talking to him.
The setting is good for an interesting story, as Ryder is very Charismatic and he is a complex character which is both good and evil. Which makes him connect with Walter, which at first appears to be his exact opposite. Unfortunately it never really pulls through, and the interesting mix feels like it is carrying too much weight from it's original 1974 version from a time where badguys should be bad, and goodguys should be good. It seems like the actors wants to go in one direction, while the old fashioned story is predetermined to go another.
There's plenty of room for twists and turns in the movie, but sadly they never appear. I was in fact surprised by the lack of twists rather than surprised by twists. It all feels a bit outdated, only with some Internet and some cell phones thrown in, but I am sure it was quite fresh back in the '70s.
Travolta delivers a pretty good performance though, although his character fails to be believable, it is like it is meant for another story. You'd think that with big actor names the movie would have some spectacular moments, like massive mayhem and destruction CG of some sort, but instead it all looks pretty much budget. They even used some animations with flyovers in Manhattan that seems to be captured from Google Earth. That's something I would expect to find on YouTube.
If no big name actors in it, you would never think twice calling this a B-movie.