It takes a rough town to host a tough crime caper. New York City in its bankrupt "Ford To City: Drop Dead" period offers a compelling backdrop to the story of four desperate men who launch a scheme to make the city pay a million dollars by taking a subway car and its passengers hostage. It's a fascinating story with a lot of local color and a perfect distillation of suspense.
Funny lines, too, not clever sitcom banter but real-life wisecracks from people used to living their lives in constant tension, delivered with all the electricity of New York Post headlines.
"Never say you're sorry," a senior conductor warns a young trainee. "Someone might come out here and hit you in your damn nose."
An angry trainmaster (Dick O'Neill), when reminded about the 18 hostages, replies: "What do they expect for their lousy 35 cents, to live forever?"
When a senior transit cop named Lt. Garber (Walter Matthau) asks a colleague played by Jerry Stiller to tell some Japanese visitors about the kind of crime they have to deal with, Stiller's character replies: "We had a bomb scare in the Bronx yesterday, but it turned out to be a cantaloupe."
Matthau's role isn't the most challenging of his career, mostly he pushes a lot of buttons and talks into a microphone, but he throws up an array of great reaction shots, from his first moment of being woken from a catnap to his last, one of the most memorable of any 1970s film. I love his reaction when Stiller's Lt. Patrone character offers his theory of how the hijackers plan to get away with the loot by flying the subway to Cuba: "You're a sick man, Rico."
The real sick man in this movie is the great Robert Shaw as the lead hijacker, who goes by the alias Mr. Blue. Shaw excelled at playing functional psychopaths, not to mention dangerous train passengers, and here he keeps the suspense on a low boil throughout. He doesn't want to kill anyone, not because he's a nice guy, but because he's a perfectionist who doesn't want anything to upset his plans. This sets him at odds with his trigger-happy associate, Mr. Grey (Héctor Elizondo).
Matthau's got his own problem associate, the trainmaster who's probably feeling guilty about the subordinate he sent to visit the endangered car, and their back-and-forth makes clear this is a shaky bit of business for all concerned.
Director Joseph Sargent makes a very dynamic, functional story hum with minimal drag. Another New York director of more artistic pedigree, say Sidney Lumet, would have made a great film from this John Godey novel, but he would have paused a bit for "what-it-all-means" moments. There's none of that here, but there are still many fine touches in the execution of this movie. I suspect Lumet got the idea for shooting his Washington Post interiors in "All The President's Men" from the gritty way the Transit Authority office is shot here, with those hot florescent lights that contrast so wonderfully with the dark subway scenes.
What else to say? David Shire's masterful score will keep you on the edge of your seat whenever it starts up, and the editing by Gerald B. Greenberg and Robert Q. Lovett is up to the level of the scheming bad guys.
If you want to see a movie that celebrates the Big Apple when all goes wrong, this is a place to go.
Funny lines, too, not clever sitcom banter but real-life wisecracks from people used to living their lives in constant tension, delivered with all the electricity of New York Post headlines.
"Never say you're sorry," a senior conductor warns a young trainee. "Someone might come out here and hit you in your damn nose."
An angry trainmaster (Dick O'Neill), when reminded about the 18 hostages, replies: "What do they expect for their lousy 35 cents, to live forever?"
When a senior transit cop named Lt. Garber (Walter Matthau) asks a colleague played by Jerry Stiller to tell some Japanese visitors about the kind of crime they have to deal with, Stiller's character replies: "We had a bomb scare in the Bronx yesterday, but it turned out to be a cantaloupe."
Matthau's role isn't the most challenging of his career, mostly he pushes a lot of buttons and talks into a microphone, but he throws up an array of great reaction shots, from his first moment of being woken from a catnap to his last, one of the most memorable of any 1970s film. I love his reaction when Stiller's Lt. Patrone character offers his theory of how the hijackers plan to get away with the loot by flying the subway to Cuba: "You're a sick man, Rico."
The real sick man in this movie is the great Robert Shaw as the lead hijacker, who goes by the alias Mr. Blue. Shaw excelled at playing functional psychopaths, not to mention dangerous train passengers, and here he keeps the suspense on a low boil throughout. He doesn't want to kill anyone, not because he's a nice guy, but because he's a perfectionist who doesn't want anything to upset his plans. This sets him at odds with his trigger-happy associate, Mr. Grey (Héctor Elizondo).
Matthau's got his own problem associate, the trainmaster who's probably feeling guilty about the subordinate he sent to visit the endangered car, and their back-and-forth makes clear this is a shaky bit of business for all concerned.
Director Joseph Sargent makes a very dynamic, functional story hum with minimal drag. Another New York director of more artistic pedigree, say Sidney Lumet, would have made a great film from this John Godey novel, but he would have paused a bit for "what-it-all-means" moments. There's none of that here, but there are still many fine touches in the execution of this movie. I suspect Lumet got the idea for shooting his Washington Post interiors in "All The President's Men" from the gritty way the Transit Authority office is shot here, with those hot florescent lights that contrast so wonderfully with the dark subway scenes.
What else to say? David Shire's masterful score will keep you on the edge of your seat whenever it starts up, and the editing by Gerald B. Greenberg and Robert Q. Lovett is up to the level of the scheming bad guys.
If you want to see a movie that celebrates the Big Apple when all goes wrong, this is a place to go.