This movie walked... err... rolled so "Die Hard" could run a decade and a half later.

| Sep 26, 2023

The movie must have been an editor's nightmare: the scenes are thudders, and the whole thing was punched together -- with no glue but the basic idea.

| Sep 21, 2023

Filled with distinctive characters and crackling dialogue -- and always with another surprise up its sleeve.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 15, 2023

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three's title is as memorable as its unique hold-a-subway-car-hostage take on the heist film

| Sep 13, 2021

...masterful...

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 1, 2021

Stiller is terrific as a transit authority police lieutenant, as is Matthau as the rather sour cop who has to outsmart the bad guys.

| Mar 7, 2021

Sargent keeps the focus firmly on his leads. Shaw is admirably fanatical, and the world-weary, wisecracking Matthau is magnificent.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 7, 2021

It is in essence a flawless film: you could improve bits and pieces perhaps, but there is nothing in the film that doesn't work.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Jul 22, 2020

The large, well-characterized cast is ably headed by Walter Matthau, whose wonderfully weary sense of irony is perfect.

| Oct 3, 2018

Taps into viewers' paranoia over a decrepit, vulnerable infrastructure and then provides bitter laughs and a harrowing catharsis.

| Aug 27, 2018

What's good about Pelham's example of the form is that the performances are allowed enough leeway so that we care about the people not the plot mechanics. And what could have been formula trash turns out to be fairly classy trash, after all.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 29, 2018

... hasn't the credentials of 'Dog Day Afternoon' or 'The French Connection' but this ingenious crime caper / hostage drama is one of the great New York crime films of the 1970s.

| Mar 30, 2017

A work of substance and an exciting experience.

| Jul 2, 2016

One of the decade's great defenses of New York

| Sep 8, 2009

Smart, tense, and funny, Joseph Sargent's thriller is a product of its times, reflecting New York in the 1970s and part of a cycle of urban paranoia movie, such as French Connection and Dog Day Afternoon.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 3, 2009

Surly humor powers the movie as much as the ticking-clock premise does.

| Original Score: A | Jun 14, 2009

This is gritty, entertaining 1970s filmmaking at its finest.

| Jun 12, 2009

The original version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was made 35 years ago, yet it retains a quality of cool that will remain long after people have forgotten the current version.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 10, 2009

An archeological specimen from nearly two decades before the advent of the Metrocard

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 8, 2009

...a quintessential 1970s New York picture, full of prickly characters and urban tension.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 7, 2009