THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE is “DIE HARD in a subway.” Or rather, it would be if PELHAM hadn’t been made a decade before DIE HARD, and if wasn’t a terrifically entertaining thriller. That’s an impressive accomplishment for a film that aims to make Walter Matthau an action hero and is directed by man who went on to make JAWS: THE REVENGE.

All right, so I’m exaggerating. Walter Matthau is the hero, but he isn’t called upon to perform much action. He’s sort of a mix between Bruce Willis’s John McClane and Reginald Val Johnson’s Al Powell, a New York City traffic authority cop who becomes the negotiator when a bunch of very smart terrorists, led by Robert Shaw, take a subway car hostage and stall it underneath 23rd Street. The instructions are clear: one hour to deliver one million dollars. For every minute after one hour the money is late, a hostage dies.

Matthau, a gifted comedian and an unforgettable screen presence, isn’t exactly the type of guy you expect to take charge of a dangerous situation. He knows he can’t pull off a macho act. The guy’s face, even at this young age, had more folds than a piece of origami. So he plays his typical role - brash, arrogant, and smart. A movie about two guys talking to one another over a radio could get pretty boring, but Matthau and Shaw have tremendous chemistry and Shaw’s steel-jawed intensity plays well off of Matthau’s wisecracks.

On his commentary to the DVD of DIE HARD, John McTiernan explains that he refused to make the movie until he could figure out a way to make you root for the bad guys. By his rationale, if you’re invested in the bad guy’s actions, hoping they succeed as you also hope they get caught, your conflicting emotions pull you deeper into the film. That same principle holds true in PELHAM.  Even though the hijackers are cold-blooded terrorists, their plan is so far-fetched and seemingly impossible that we want them to pull it off almost as bad as we want them to get caught.

The supporting cast also includes Hector Elizondo as a particularly vicious hijacker and Jerry Stiller as a traffic cop, and they, along with the film’s many New York locations, give PELHAM a very realistic feel. As the deadline closes in, the terrorists’ money speeds via police escort through the real streets of Manhattan. The atmosphere is rich and the tension is thick; the delivery scene culminates in a moment so exciting that I actually gasped.

PELHAM isn’t a showy movie with flashy camera work or big stunts; for an hijacking thriller, it’s actually rather subdued. With slow, deliberate pacing it builds towards a very satisfying finale you will not see coming. Give the film the respect it’s due; next time, call DIE HARD “THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE in an office building.”

IF YOU LIKED THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE, CHECK OUT: THE FORTUNE COOKIE (1966), a classic Billy Wilder comedy that earned Walter Matthau his Oscar.

THE BAD

Call me crazy, but a movie in which Snoop Dogg plays the vengeful ghost of a murdered pimp-hero sounds like something worth seeing. Unfortunately, BONES, a movie that roughly fits that description, is anything but. Though Snoop has above-the-title billing, he’s got little more than a glorified cameo until the final act -- think The Rock in THE MUMMY RETURNS -- he’s the character who propels the action, but he rarely appears on screen in any form other than as a computer generated ghoul. That’s quite a disappointment since Snoop’s the only thing worth seeing in the movie. The rest is a combination of tacky special effects, poor performances, and general horror movie malaise.

Snoop plays Jimmy Bones, a pimp with a heart of gold who was murdered decades ago and has become an urban legend. Today, Patrick (Khalil Kain) and his buddies buy Jimmy’s old house despite warnings from crazy old men with shotguns who hang around outside. Even the discovery of a human jaw cannot dissuade this stubborn young men. They see this particular entrance to hell as a fixer-upper, one they can turn into a cool new dance club.

Nothing can stop their dream, which is noble but highly stupid, given all the warnings they receive about Jimmy Bones’s house. A vicious stray dog with glowing red eyes stalks the house, so naturally it is allowed to join the group and receives the moniker “Bones.” A skeleton bearing Bones’ ring and switch blade is found, but instead of running away in terror never to return, they steal his ring and desecrate his grave.  Why not just urinate on it and make him really mad?

Snoop Dogg as a ghost carving up people like a manic depressive at Thanksgiving dinner is a lot of fun. The ninety minutes preceding it is not because knowing what is coming eliminates any possibility of suspense. As soon as the Jimmy Bones legend is established, the ending’s inevitable: he will return from the grave, kill lots of people in elaborate ways, say the word dog (or dogg, if you will) a lot, and then finally be eliminated by the two or three main characters.  For a change, can we not go through the motions?

While the plot is utter gibberish, BONES does sport some fine camera work, courtesy of cinematographer Flavio Labiano.  Unfortunately, less attention was paid to the garish and silly horror effects. Most of the blood looks like paint, and the terrifying maggots that fly at our heroes look suspiciously like my mother’s rice pilaf. Watch out! It’s lemon-flavored!

Given his background in rap, you might fear that Snoop Dogg embarrasses himself as a slasher villain; but, actually, the movie lets him down. Just cut out the generic teenage horror antics, and give the people more of what they want! Snoop as a killer ghost pimp! With any luck, things will turn around for BONES 2: SUB-WOOFER.

INSTEAD OF BONES, CHECK OUT: DOLEMITE (1975), a far better vengeful pimp movie, though he’s not a vengeful ghost pimp. Two out of three ain’t bad.  And star Rudy Ray Moore’s a great rapper too.

THE UGLY

A Dollar Store in the mall might not sound like a good place to find movies, but at most of these stores you can find classic films for just a buck; for instance, a classic about an incredible crime-fighting wagon aptly named SUPERVAN. There’s just one catch. Buy SUPERVAN at a dollar store and you’ll likely end up with a choppy, hacked up version of a film entitled THE VAN. In fairness, it’s easy to confuse a movie about a Supervan with one about a really big, but fairly average, van. Thankfully, if you watch THE VAN (also available under its proper title from Rhino Home Video) you’ll get a ridiculous trip to the hard-driving, hard-loving decade of the 1970s where the bigger your van, the better your love life.

The owner of the titular van is Bobby. He just graduated high school and works at the car wash; the car wash, yeah. Bobby’s life is a series of increasingly pathetic episodes. The opening credits find him bouncing up and down in his car like a moron to “Chevy Van.”  Later, he gets his foot caught in the carwash, and is dragged, soaked, then stripped of all his clothes.  And he doesn’t even get to join a fraternity afterwards. 

That debacle is sandwiched between a hilarious session of poking Danny DeVito in the ass with a needle and a meeting with a car salesman with the fashion sense of Colonel Sanders where he buys his fantastically amazing van. All in all, a good day for Bobby.

This van, by the way, is bright yellow, with several phallic arrows painted on the side, with the phrase Straight Arrow sprawled across each side. The back half of the van is hollowed out and the walls are covered with shag carpeting, and additional features include a waterbed, a mirrored ceiling, and a toaster. A toaster! Something tells me the toaster wasn’t standard.

In the world of THE VAN, a fine lookin’ van is vehicular Spanish fly. The hottest woman in town is shacked up with a bully named Duggan, simply because he has a really big van. The man is a jerk, a drunk, and has a mole the size of Alaska on his left arm. But he’s got a van, so women are helpless to resist his oily charm. Bobby ends up alone after a failed date, peeping on Duggan’s lady from his van. She catches him, but she sleeps with him anyway. Clearly, the van will toast your bread, but not improve your sense of self-respect.

There isn’t really more to the plot. In the same way BREAKIN’ 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO manages to tie every single human concept into break dancing, THE VAN manages to construct a universe of total vaniosity. Instead of lovers walk hand-in-hand at the beach, they admire the dozens of customized vans parked along the edge of the water. The film ends in a AMERICAN GRAFFITI-style drag race, but with vans. Once Bobby buys his van he doesn’t go to work, or sleep, or eat. He just drives in his van, cruising for chicks. This movie takes place in the 1970s. Wasn’t there an oil crisis? Given his gas-guzzling ways, I’m inclined to suspect Bobby was the main reason for the shortage.

Like other classics of cinema, THE BICYCLE THIEF for example, you don’t just watch THE VAN; the complex images it presents stir questions that bring the viewer deeper into the moviegoing experience. As I watched THE VAN, I pondered the meaning of life and other important queries like “Why is ‘Chevy Van’ played a dozen times?” and “Was Danny DeVito desperate to repay gambling debts when he agreed to appear in THE VAN?” and “Are women really attracted to big yellow vans?” and “Where the hell can I get a big yellow van?”

IF YOU LIKE THE VAN, CHECK OUT: SUPERVAN (1973), because if you’re watching THE VAN, you probably wanted to watch SUPERVAN anyway.