Buzzed-up remake of the 1974 hijacked-subway thriller, a handy yardstick of early-21st-century style: photographic gimmicks (pixillation, slow-motion, blurs, zooms, whatnot), throwaway car crashes, outlandish one-man heroics from the deskbound train dispatcher, inflationism in theme and plot as well as in ransom demand. It took some smarts to retrieve from the vaults a good film that’s not well known, but it took some stupids to lose the focus on average New Yorkers under the gun. John Turturro is blessedly low-key as the NYPD hostage negotiator, and Denzel Washington tries valiantly to play down to his character’s status in the bureaucracy, but one or two men can’t counteract the mood-swinging, scenery-chewing villainy of John Travolta. With James Gandolfini, Michael Rispoli, Luis Guzman; directed by Tony Scott. (2009) — Duncan Shepherd
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