Killer Date

Drop

Director: Christopher Landon

Cast: Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Reed Diamond

Released: April 11, 2025

This is a fun thriller, but there are some things that really don't make much sense why the bad guy would go through all this trouble. 

Violet (Meghann Fahy), a single mother and psychiatrist, is going out on her first date in quite awhile. She's a victim of domestic abuse and her ex is dead, though it's unclear whether she killed him or not. (We'll find out the truth later.) For the last three months, she's been talking to a guy named Henry on a dating app and they're meeting to have dinner. Her sister will be watching her five-year-old son, Toby. 

The restaurant they choose to have their first date at is a bit much for a first date. It's on the top floor of a tall building in Chicago so if you sit by a window, you have this amazing view of the city. It's clear this is a high class place just by the decor and the food they serve. This is the kind of place you would go for a special anniversary, not a first date. 

Violet has taken a taxi and after she's dropped off, before entering the building, she looks up and tells herself, "It's just a date." On the way up in the elevator, she gets a text from Henry telling her he's going to be ten minutes late. 

She decides to get a drink at the bar. The restaurant is set up so the hostess stand and restrooms are separated from the bar and the dining area by a long tunneled hallway you have to walk through. When she enters the dining area, she immediately bumps into a guy. Now if you already knew the premise of this movie, you might think he's the one sending her the drops (we'll get to that soon if you have no idea what that means, i.e, you have no idea what the plot of this movie is), but I knew it wasn't going to be him because it would be way too obvious. They bumped into each other because they were both looking at their phones. She had just gotten a text from Henry telling her he was on his way. Duh, Henry, you already told her that with your first message! 

While at the bar, she chitchats with the bartender, a young woman who's also a single mother. An older guy in a suit asks her if she's Diane and introduces himself as Richard. She tells him she's not Diane and learns he's on a blind date. While they're talking, the piano player interrupts them and starts flirting with Violet. The bartender tells him to knock it off, that she's waiting for her date. When he asks her is she has any songs she likes, she asks him if he knows "Baby Shark" because that's her son's favorite song. Yep, it might be time to get out if the only song you can think of is "Baby Shark." 

Diane arrives and it's clear by the look on her facer, she's not thrilled about Richard. Why would she even agree to go on this date? Why would anyone agree to go on a blind date? Richard follows her to their table and when he turns around, Violet gives him a thumbs up sign. While still waiting (I feel like it's been more than ten minutes!), Violet texts her sister to see how things are going. Her date hasn't even started yet and she she's already texting home? But this is mainly used as a plot device because while on her phone, she received a "digiDrop" from someone with the username Lets_Play who wants to share a photo and she can either accept or decline it. She declines it. A digiDrop is like an AirDrop. (I'm guessing they didn't have the rights to use AirDrop.) We'll get a little more information how it works later. I would be a little freaked out if I were her and was receiving an digiDrop from some random person in a restaurant. If there were someone you knew there, wouldn't they just text you (or, come up and say hello)? I would be wondering why someone random person was sending me a pic, and I too, like her, would decline it. 

She starts looking at pictures of Henry (who is very good-looking) from the dating profile and I thought for sure he was going to come up and see her looking at pics of him and I would have been so embarrassed for her, but instead she gets another digiDrop that she declines. She looks around the restaurant and literally, almost everybody is on their phones. 

Henry, who is a photographer, shows up with his camera. He says he brought his camera with him because if he left if in the car someone will take it. I mean, I get him being cautious, but having him bring the camera is for the sake of the plot. Another thing that is for the sake of the plot is Violet leaving her phone on the table. She asks him if it's okay she leave her phone there just in case her sister needs to get in touch with her and he says it's fine. 

Now if you're wondering, is Henry the one sending her the digiDrops, that is something I never considered because the summary on Peacock is about how she's receiving messages from someone that wants her to kill her date, so why would those come from him? (Hope that wasn't a spoiler!) 

Their waiter comes to take their order. It is his first day and he just wants to chat about how he's an improv actor and he's writing a sketch for Second City where he plays a hat on top of Allison Janney's head (that is the most random thing!). He is clearly the comic relief of the movie. When he leaves to get their drinks, Violet receives another digDrop. Henry sees the concern on her face and asks if everything is okay and she shows him and tells him somebody keeps sending them. He thinks it's probably just a bunch of dumb kids messing with her because it happens to him all the time on the L train. She doesn't think this is the kind of place where someone would do that, but when they look around they see a bunch of high school kids having dinner before prom and assume it must be one of them. 

She places the phone face down on the table and it beeps again and she picks it up just in case it's her sister. This time it and she she's sent a cute photo of her son eating ice cream. As she's holding the phone, another digiDrop appears (this guy is a relentless (and yes, I'm going to presume its a guy!)). So when she gets these drops, there are memes and this one in particular has her name on it. I'm not really into meme culture so none of these meant anything to me. I think there was only one meme I was familiar with and it's probably the one you're thinking of. 

This makes her very concerned, but Henry isn't concerned at all. He explains to her (and the audience) how the digiDrop works: erveryone who has the app (wait, it's an app?) can see her name and photo (as well as the names and photos of the other people who have the app. Is it me or does this app seem kinda intrusive? Like, what kind of f***ed up app is this? Why would I want why my name and photo out there for everyone to see? I would never download this (fictional) app. He thinks you have to be within fifty feet to send a digiDrop so he uses his phone to record how far away fifty feet is and discovers the lobby and kitchen are out of range, so it's coming form somebody in the dining room. Thanks, Sherlock! 

While the waiter is going on about the specials, Violet receives a message from this Lets_Play character, but this time he wants to send a message, not a photo. And this time she accepts it. So why is she accepting messages, but not photos? Perhaps if he had started with a message in the first place, he wouldn't have to send her 15 unanswered digiDrops! The message tells her to check her home security cameras, which she does and she sees a masked man with a gun in her kitchen looking at the camera. She scrolls through the other cameras and sees her sister reading a book to Toby in his bedroom. I've never seen someone with so many security cameras; she must have ten around the house! Something tells me when her son gets older, he's going to ask his mother to take away the camera in his room! I get that this is done for the plot of the movie, but that seems like an extreme breach of your child's privacy, but since he's only five, we'll let it slide for now. 

Needless to say, she looks visibly upset and Henry asks her if she's okay and before she can say anything, she gets another message from Lets_Play which says, "Keep your mouth shut." 

Okay, the first time she received the message, it appeared as "Lets_Play sent you a message" and she could either click accept or decline, like she did with the photos. But with the "Keep your moth shut" message, she can can read it on the screen and didn't have to accept it. Maybe since she accepted the first message, she now has unlocked all incoming messages from him? IDK? And yes, this is the stupid stuff I ponder about. 

I watched this scene about three or four times to try to make sense of how this app worked (I don't know why I was so obsessed with figuring out how a stupid fictional app worked!) and while the waiter is talking about the specials you're so focused on Violet who is focused on her phone that you're probably not really supposed to be listening to the waiter, like she is, but after watching this four times, I caught it the fourth time and what he said made me laugh. He's telling them about the "lemon oyster soup" and I laughed when he says, "it sounds weird...and it is! But it's good!" 

Violet tells Henry she needs to call home and gets up. While she's walking away from the table, she has dialed 911, but before she connects the call, she gets a message saying her phone has been cloned and "I can see everything." This mystery person tells her if she calls the cops, leaves the restaurant, or tells anyone, then her son will die. At that moment she runs into the same guy from earlier before and I'm more convinced than ever that he is a red herring. He is just too obvious. 

She goes into the bathroom where some of the high schools girls are putting on makeup. Before she can say anything to them, she gets a warning text not to tell them anything. She asks one for eyeliner and tries to write "Call 911" on her palm, but the girl is confused because the writing is all smudged and she thinks it says "Cal". She gets another warning text. After the girls leave, Violet discovers there was a small camera behind a decorative vase. When she comes back to the table, she tells Henry she's emotional because she hasn't been out "like this" since her son was born. She notices a small camera at the end of the table, much similar to the one she found in the bathroom. Whoever's doing this has sure gone to a lot of trouble! 

She makes up a story, telling Henry that her son can't find his stuffed animal and acts like she just realized where it is. She starts texting, pretending it's to her sister, but she texts her new friend, asking, "Who are you?" and he tells her he could be anyone. Helpful, but of course he's not going to reveal himself to her. 

Violet tells Henry she would like to move tables because heights make her nervous. The waiter secures them a different table and as they're following him, she gets a couple messages: "Do not switch tables", followed by "Toby's dead in one minute if you don't go back." Of course she insists their old table was fine and she wants to go back. She says they they came for the view and she's going to get over her fear. The waiter is a little annoyed, but tries his best to remain polite. 

Once they're settled back at their original table, the hostess comes over to make sure everything is okay with the table and reminds Henry that he specifically reserved this one. He says he didn't so we know the person behind this called the restaurant and used his name. 

The mystery digiDropper sends Violet his first demand: "Get the SD card from this camera." He doesn't even offer her a few hints of how she can do this; he just expects her to figure it out on her own. While Henry is ordering (I swear they already ordered in a previous scene?), Violet discreetly slips off her watch (please, what kind of thirty year old still wears a watch in this day and age?) and puts it in her purse (which is under the table). After their waiter leaves, she "realizes" her watch is missing and says it must have fallen off because of a faulty clasp. She knows for sure she had it on when she entered the restaurant because the hostess had complimented it. She asks Henry if he would mind asking the hostess if anyone has seen it or brought it to her. While Henry is doing that (and remember, he has to walk through the tunnel to get to the hostess stand), she gets the SD card from his camera. I gotta be honest, I would have no idea how to do that. I would have to Google "How to retrieve SD card from a camera" and I would 100% get caught because I would be taking too long to do it. It gets pretty tight, but she manages to get it before he gets back. 

She gets a text for her to go to the restroom. She tells Henry that she's going to look for her watch there. When she gets to the ladies' room, she gets another message telling her to smash the card and flush it down the toilet, which she does. 

She thinks this is all she has to do (HA!), but she she gets another message to open the towel dispenser and when she does, she finds a vial of what is presumably poison and is told to "pour it in Henry's drink and that will be "quick. (Spoiler alert...it won't be that quick!) 

When the hostess stand is empty, she goes behind the counter to use those computers. Now I've never been a hostess at a restaurant, but I didn't think you can get online on those computers.  Don't they just have a program set up to take reservations and times and table numbers, like I doubt you can search the web for a domestic abuse hotline like she does. She enters the chat and starts typing about how her son is being held hostage. Before she can push enter, she gets a message telling her she better not send it. Before

Violet suggest to Henry that they take a shot and at first he's hesitant because he has to work the next day and she apologetically says she was trying to lighten the mood and he relents, replying, "A shot never killed anybody" to which she just laughs nervously. 

They both agree on tequila (Hey! I had a shot of tequila a couple months ago!) and she insists on going to the bar to get them. While she's getting up to leave, her foot catches on her purse and her watch spills out. You would think this would mean the end of the date, but it doesn't. If anything, it will almost bring them closer together. Also, I don't know why she just didn't "find" her watch when she went to the restroom to "look" for it. I suppose she was just too distracted to think about that since she had just been told to kill her date. 

While ordering the tequila, the bartender she had talked to earlier asks if she's okay because she seem "kind of on edge" (that's an understatement!), but Violet tells her it's just "first date jitters". She takes the vial out which seems like a stupid thing to do. You're in a crowded room and taking out a vial. Surely she's not going to pour it in the drink right there! That would make her look totally sus. But before she can do anything, she gets a text telling her to "do it at the table." Ha, even the deranged psycho knows that's a stupid move. Plus, I guess he needs to see her do it, but if he's texting her to do it at the table, doesn't that mean he saw her take the vial out? I don't know...there's a lot of things about this movie that don't make much sense as you already can tell. Violet is about to take the drinks back to the table and when the bartender asks if she wants some limes, she hesitates for a minute before saying, "No thanks." Aren't limes a necessity when taking a tequila shot? But she has a plan! 

Back at the table, Henry hands her the watch and she tries to play dumb (girl, please!) asking him where he found it and he tells her it spilled out of her purse. You would think this would be a dealbreaker, but it isn't. He tells her that she's distracted and he knows something's happening because she keeps looking around and texting. Yeah, even the bartender across the room knows something is going on with her. She's making it pretty obvious. This is when they have a heart to heart conversation and he tells her he messaged her because she seemed like a genuine person. As a viewer, you like these two together and you hope that she doesn't actually kill him, even though her son's life is in danger if she doesn't. Plus them having a connection is just going to make it all the more difficult for her to kill him. 

Of course she deliberately forgot the limes so she could ask him to grab them. While he's gone, she takes out the vial and allegedly pours the liquid in his drink. I say allegedly because how the scene is set up, the camera tilts up so you can't really see the drink in the shot. She sees the red herring guy sitting at a table and glares at him.  

Henry returns to the table with the limes and they toast to hope. Violet watches him as he brings the drink closer to his lips, then right before he takes a sip, she spills her glass of wine, getting all over his shirt. As he goes to clean up, she gets a message: "That wasn't smart." 

Okay, I'm about to go into spoiler territory so if you don't want to know who's been sending her the drops, don't read any further.  Spoilers ahoy! 

The bartender comes over and tells her she's been acting skittish all night and thinks Violet doesn't feel safe with her date and offers to help her get out of there. Violet tells her that's not the case here. The subject turns to Richard, the guy with the blind date that left in a huff, and the bartender tells Violet she doesn't blame his date for leaving because "he's been staring at you all night." Aha! Violet walks over to him with the two tequila shots. She offers him a drink, telling him she thought he could use it. He calls her by her name and says, "One drink is my limit for the night." She says she doesn't remember telling him her name and knowing he's been caught, he snarls, "Sit." My question: did he call her by her name on purpose? 

Okay, so I left some information out when Violet and the audience are first introduced to Richard when he first asks Violet if she's Diane, his blind date. He tells her that his date didn't have social media and thus he didn't know what she looked like. I can maybe believe this if his date is around his age, which is probably mid 60s. But why would he think his date is a woman in his thirties? Of course, he knew all along who Violet was and that probably should have been my first clue that this guy was sus. 

Once she's seated, he tells her to pick a shot and drink it and she does. This guy isn't even going to try to pretend he's not the one sending her the drops. He tells her he picked this table to watch her from because "it's the only one in the blind spot of the camera." 

So why has Richard gone through all this trouble to threaten Violet's son and sister, to place cameras all around the restaurant (how did he even do that without being noticed?), to call the restaurant as Henry and reserve that special table (well, that was the easiest task he had to do), to poison the piano player and somehow sneak back into the kitchen and place the twenty dollar bill under her food (how DID he do that?)...why has he done all of that just for the hassle to have Violet kill her date? 

Well, turns out Richard works for the mayor who's corrupt and Henry had some information on his camera that could hurt the mayor if it ever got out in public (I don't remember what it was...some scandal), hence why Richard had Violet destroy the SIM card. Henry had received a call from the FBI asking him to meet them tonight and hand over the SIM card. But if it's already been destroyed....why does he want Violet to kill him? That seems a bit extreme. I understand he's an informant for the FBI, but if he doesn't have any evidence, how is he going to help? Maybe I missed something. 

When she tells him she's going to tell the police about the drops, he reminds her that they're untraceable and there's no way one can detect who they came from. He tells her he chose her because she killed her husband. But she didn't. The real story is that he shot himself. But, honestly, would anyone blame her if she did kill him? He had just beaten her and at one point, threatened their baby with the gun. If she did shoot him, I would call it self defense. 

His waiter comes by with his panna cotta which he raves about. He tells her that the camera above her table recorded her spike the shot with "Sertraline laced with a little fentanyl" and that he chose that because he knows she prescribes Sertraline sometimes to her patients so it would look like it came from her. He boasts about how he's playing chess and that he's two steps ahead of her. In fact, she's not even in the same league as he is because, according to him, she's playing a totally different game. She's playing Yahtzee. It was at this moment, that I knew she was going to somehow poison his dessert. I knew this because 1) he was making such a big fuss over the dessert and how beautiful and delicious it look, and b) he kept bragging about how he was "winning". 

Richard tells Violet the only way to save her son is to have Henry drink the shot and that it will be her "last chance." When Henry walks over to him, Richard tells him that he and Violet are "old pals." Violet gives Henry the shot and Richard is looking at him gleefully as he watches him drink it. Violet asks him to give her a few more minutes and once he's out of earshot, she tells Richard to call the intruder at her house and call off the hit since she did what he asked her to. He calls the guy and tells him, "It's done." He doesn't quite tell him to leave. The guy replies that he'll wait for confirmation. Isn't "it's done" the confirmation? Richard tells Violet he's going to eat his dessert while he waits for Henry to "keel over." 

As he's eating his dessert, she tells him about the time she went out to dinner with her late husband and he was eating panna cotta and she would "pretend everything was fine" like "tonight when I pretended to poison that shot." He looks very alarmed as he looks down at his half-eaten dessert. We get a flashback from two minutes ago when she poisons his dessert because he's looking gleefully and intently at Henry. Like, dude. C'mon. What an idiot. 

But Violet may be a bit of an idiot too. I get that she wanted to get the satisfaction of him knowing that she "won" (and it's really funny when she says "Yahtzee" when he realizes he's been poisoned), but she should have just left him to die because he has plenty of time to call his henchman back to tell him to kill Violet's son and sister. He also has time to take a gun out, but before he can shoot Violet, Henry pushes her out of the way and he gets shot in the arm. The bullet ends up hitting a window and Violet throws a hockey puck (which Henry had given her earlier in the date as a present for her son) at the window and it breaks and Richard ends up flying out of the window like he's being sucked out of an airplane. This poison that Richard told Violet would be "quick" was not quick at all! He was killed from falling out of a building before the poison killed him. Violet is also pulled towards the window, but manages to grab a curtain that's snagged on a nail by a literal thread. Right before she's about to plunge to her death, Henry pulls her back up. 

She uses Henry's car to race to her house and is able to stop the masked man from killing her son. Way earlier in the movie, when she was still at home and getting ready for her date, a guy had knocked on her window and asked her where her meter was, telling her he was here to check it. I had totally forgotten about him and when the intruder's masks comes off, we find out it was the so-called meter man. 

We get a cute scene of Violet visiting Henry at the hospital and they agree to go on a second date after having a laugh over their "hard core first date." Just think of the story they can tell their grandchildren about their first date!

Something in the Water

Jaws

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and a mechanical shark dubbed Bruce

Released: June 20, 1975

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

Best Editing (won)

Best Dramatic Score (won)

Best Sound (won)

This movie recently celebrated it's 50th (!!!) anniversary and what better time to review it? Jaws is a very revolutionary movie, being known as the first summer blockbuster. It really is that quintessential summer movie, being set on an New England island beach town during the Fourth of July with a killer shark lurking in the water. This was Spielberg's third movie he directed (well, technically fourth, but the very first movie he directed was only shown at a theater in Phoenix where he grew up called Firelight when he was only 17. (Yes, I got all this information from Wikipedia.)) Anyway, I'm not counting that one. 

I had only seen this movie once before. I think I was in middle school when my brother rented it. There were a few things I remembered, like the very first scene when the young woman goes for a midnight swim and becomes a midnight snack for the shark.

New York native Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) is the police chief of Amity Island. We're never really told where Amity Island is, we just know it's off the coast of New England. We do know that the movie was filmed on Martha's Vineyard, a place I've visited! Now I was only in Oaks Bluff (shout out to Stephanie Wolf Designs, this amazing store with these beautiful earrings I'm obsessed with!) and the movie was filmed in a town called Edgartown which is just south of Oaks Bluff. Now I was thinking it was probably an hour drive from Oaks Bluff, but no, I just Googled the distance and it's an eighteen minute drive! Obviously my view was seriously distorted!

Back to the movie! Brody and his wife live in a cute little house by the water with their two young sons; Michael, who is around 12 and his brother, Sean who is four or five. They also have this really cute dog, who, I'm not gonna lie, I was really worried about. Yes, I'm the person who is more worried about the pets than the kids! 

The boy who was with the girl the night before called the police to report her missing. I'm kind of surprised he did this because he had passed out on the beach from too much drinking after she went in the water, so I don't think he even saw her get attacked. Wouldn't he had just assumed she made it out of the water? And it's not like this was his girlfriend and he hadn't heard from her the next day and that's what made him call the police. These two had just met the night before at a bonfire fire when she went frolicking by him and motioned for him to follow her. I'm probably giving this too much thought. 

On his way to the beach, we see Brody pass a big sign welcoming tourists to Amity for the "50th Annual Regatta." There's a painting of a girl relaxing on a floaty lounger in the water. This sign will have an amazing callback later.   

It doesn't take long before another officer finds the girl's remains that have been washed up on the beach. According to the sickened look on his face, it isn't pretty. We just see her hair and a hand and later we will find all that is left of her fits in a small box the size of a basin so there's not that much left of her. Brody puts her cause of death as "shark attack" in his report and buys supplies to make signs to tell the public the beach. is closed. 

It's almost July 4th and when the Mayor finds out that Brody wants to close the beaches, he's not too happy. Amity is a tourist hot spot where many people come to enjoy the beach and spend their money at the local stores (especially around the Fourth!) and he suggests that maybe the girl's body got mauled by a boat propellor instead of a shark. For some reason, the medical examiner is also present for this conversation (small town, I guess) and when Brody questions him about that, he says he was wrong and he'll amend his report. Why does the medical examiner care if the beaches are open/closed? Does the Mayor have something over him? The Mayor tells Brody if people find out about a shark, there will be a panic and no one will want to come to their island for the Fourth (and then they won't want to spend all their money!). This was the first moment I thought FOR SURE the mayor was going to become fish food for the shark.

So the beach remains open and Brody is there with his family with many other people. There's only a few people in the water. A kid around twelve named Alex Kitner who had just asked his mom if he can swim for another ten minutes, goes back out with his inflatable lounger, which, in my opinion, should only be reserved for the pool. How can you relax in the ocean on an inflatable lounger? A guy is on the shore playing fetch with his black lab, throwing a stick into the water for the dog to chase. I was thinking, Spielberg, I swear to God, if you kill off that dog...

Brody is just surveying everything and we get a few faux shark moments: 

-a woman is floating on her back with her eyes closed and something gray pops up near her, b
ut it's just some guy in a swimming cap who seemed to come out of nowhere. Seriously, where did he come from? 

-a young woman starts screaming, but then we see her boyfriend pop up from under her and she's on his shoulders. 

All of a sudden, a BUNCH of people go into the water and I'm thinking, all this splashing is going to attract and alert the shark to this area. I'll find out later I'm right about that. Brody's two sons also are in the water, or maybe it's just his oldest son, I don't remember. 

The guy with the black lab is calling for his dog and since we never saw the dog getting attacked, I'm going to tell myself the dog got thirsty and ran home to get a drink of water. Yes, that is totally what happened! The dog is okay! And anyway, if the shark had already had a doggie snack, why would he attack a human next (which is what he will do)? The dog is okay, folks! No body, no shark attack, is what I say! 

Alex Kitner, the twelve-ear-old kid, is the one who is viciously attacked. Now, if this movie were made today, they would have introduced him to the audience a little earlier, perhaps have him be a friend of Michael's so his death would hit a bit harder. Not that it wasn't horrific a young boy is attacked by this shark. There is A LOT of blood, it's like a fountain. If I were there that day, there's no way in hell I would ever set foot in any body of water ever again! Oh, yeah, did I tell you that this movie is rated PG? What kind of parent would take their young kids to see this? This was before the PG-13 rating was a thing (like a decade before), but this definitely would be a PG-13 if it came out today. 

Everyone is scurrying out of the water and there's a terrible moment when Alex's mother is calling his name, but of course he doesn't answer her and his ripped floaty washes up to the shore. 

Soon after, there'a a town meeting at the school for a discussion about what had happened and what they're going to do about it. Brody tells them they're going to put "shark spotters on the beach." When asked point blank if they're going to close the beaches, he tells them they are and everyone starts grumbling. Who are these people? A young boy is killed by a shark and they still want to go back in the water? The f***? He tells them they'll be bringing in an expert from Oceanographic Institute from the mainland. 

The Mayor tries to calm the people down by telling them this will only be for twenty-four hours and Brody tells him he didn't agree to that, but everyone ignores him. They're still pissed even about the twenty-four hours. These people really only care about their money and making sure people are spending money at their shops. 

While everyone is arguing, we get the introduction of  Quint (Robert Shaw), which is my least favorite scene of the movie because he gets everyone's attention by scraping his fingernails down a chalkboard and, ugh! I HATE that whole sensation/sound. It just mades me SHUDDER. That scene was way worse than any shark attack! Quint is a fisherman and tells them he can catch this shark. He'll find it for $3,000, but wants $10,000 to kill it. Okay, so of course I had to go to the conversion calculator! Three thousand dollars in 1974 (the movie came out in '75, but it's set the year before) would now be $19,608 (I rounded up) today in 2025. Ten grand would now be a whopping $65,360! (Again, I rounded up.) This guy would be making out with nearly $85,000 today! I guess thirteen thousand dollars was a lot of money back in the mid '70s! Too bad he won't be around to enjoy any of it (spoiler alert!)! He wants that much because he knows it's not going to be easy (spoiler alert: he's right about that!)! The Mayor tells him they'll take his offer under advisement.  

Later that evening, Brody is at home, studying a book about sharks at a desk when his wife sneaks up right behind him and leans in over his shoulder. He clearly sense something and jumps, startling her and she tells him that he scared her! Lady, why would you sneak up on someone like that? You clearly started him! 

Brody realizes that his youngest son is sitting in a boat tied to the dock while the older one is sitting on the dock (or maybe it's the other way around). He yells at whichever son to get off the boat and when he tells his wife he doesn't want the kids in the ocean, she replies he's not in the ocean, but on a boat. Lady, do you not realize that a shark could easily just tip this little row boat over? She looks at his shark book and sees an illustration of a shark crashing into the bottom of a boat and yells at her son to get off the boat. 

After the death of her son, Mrs. Kitner had posted an ad (that was put in the back of the newspaper) rewarding $3,000 for the person who killed the shark who killed her son. It's evening when we see two guys looking to collect their bounty. They have an idea to entice the shark with one of the men's wife's holiday pot roast. He says they better catch something since they're using it. (Something tells me the wife didn't give him permission to use it!) The other guy joke that $3,000 will buy him a lot of roasts. Side note: who the hell has a pot roast for the Fourth of July? That is a day reserved for hot dogs and hamburgers, grilled chicken perhaps. NOT a frickin' pot roast! That's something you have for Christmas. What kind of American are you if you're not eating grilled hot dogs on the Fourth? Look, I honestly don't care if you have hot dogs on the Fourth, but POT ROAST? The hell? Am I the only one who thinks that's weird? 

Anyway, the two guys have tied the roast to a buoy, then have tied the chain connected to the buoy around one of the dock's posts. Some time has passed and we see the buoy moving and the chain on the dock starts to uncoil so they know they have caught something. The shark is so strong that part of the dock falls off, taking one of the men with him. The guy starts swimming back, then we see the dock turn around (I guess to show that the shark is following him, even though it doesn't make sense why the shark would be attacked to the dock). I did laugh when his friend calls out to him, "Charlie, take my word for it, DON'T look back! Just swim!" I thought FOR SURE Charlie was going to be the main course after the little appetizer of the pot roast for the shark, but he manages to make it back unharmed. This guy doesn't seem like he's in great shape; there's no way he could out swim a shark, so the shark must have just been toying with him. 

The next day, on the docks, we see a bunch of people who have seen Mrs. Kitner's ad and are out hunting for the shark. We also meet Matt Hooper (a young Richard Dreyfuss) who is from the Oceanographic Institute. He wants to see the remains of the girl on the beach, the first (known!) victim of the shark. He reads the girls' cause of death as "probable boating accident" as the medical examiner takes her remains out. This is the scene I was referring to earlier when I said what's left of her fits in a small box. From what Hooper examines, he tells them this was clearly not a boat accident nor the cause of a propellor. 

We see many of the men who are trying to catch the shark out on their boats just being so careless and I thought FOR SURE at least one of them was going to become shark chow. They obviously didn't know what they were doing and weren't even equipped to kill it. One of these dummies didn't even know what "chumming" was. However, someone has caught a shark and thinks it's THE shark. This shark is pretty small and I know it's not our guy. (Plus, there's more than an hour left of the movie so of course it's not the shark!) Hooper takes measurements of its mouth and tells Brody that they don't align with the wound bites found on the victim. He wants to cut the fish open since the digestive system of a shark is very slow and if they cut it open, they can see what it's eaten in the last 24 hours (how long has it been since the boy was killed?). Speaking of which, Mrs. Kitner has arrived from her son's funeral, dressed in all black. She approaches Brody and slaps him, telling him she found out about the girl who was also killed by a shark and how he knew it wasn't safe to go in the water. The Mayor is standing next to him during this whole exchange and he seems to have no remorse because he knows he is the one who convinced Brody not to close the beaches. By now, I'm one hundred percent convinced this guy will be a victim of the shark's. (Spoiler alert: he's not! If this movie was made today, he totally would be.)

That evening, Hooper and Brody do cut the shark open to make 100% sure it's not their shark. All they get are some fish, a can, and a license plate. There's a joke about how it came up from the Gulf Stream in souther water because it's a Louisiana plate. 

They go searching for the shark at night (no, thank you!) and come across fisherman's Ben Gardner's boat drifting in the water. Hooper wants to check the under the boat. There is absolutely no reason for him to do that right this instance since they're going to haul the boat to the shore anyway. But he does and we quickly see why this scene is here: it's for the jump scare (which totally worked on me; it scared the sh*t out of me!) we get when Ben's ghoulish corpse pops out from the boat. This startles Hooper too and he drops the shark tooth he had collected from the boat. 

They both tell the Mayor about this great white shark. The Mayor still isn't budging about closing the beach and doesn't seemed all that concerned. As they're walking, we see them stop in front of the sign we saw earlier. The girl on the sign has painted on wide eyes and a painted on open mouth. There's a dorsal fin in the water near her and above her an air quote bubble with the words "Help!!! Shark". The Mayor is not amused by this and already he has people painting over it. He doesn't need any advertisement of a shark! 

Brody tells him they could still save August if they close the beach now and start shark hunting, but the Mayor just laughs at him and tells him they WILL be open tomorrow for the 4th. He adds that Brody can do whatever he needs to do to make sure the beach is safe if he's so concerned...just short of actually closing the beach. 

The ferry arrives crowded with tourists ready to spend their money and swim in the ocean! It's unclear to me if they know about the shark attacks. I don't think they were making the national news, much less the local news. 

On July 4th, the beach is packed, but nobody is going in the water. Hmm, perhaps these people know that humans can get attacked by sharks in three feet of water, about ten feet away from the shore; a fact that Hooper confirms for Brody in an earlier scene.

There's a reporter on the beach (played by Peter Benchley, the author of the book this movie is based on) who's talking about Amity Island and the shark. 

The Mayor orders suggests to somebody he knows (it looked like an older couple with their grandkids) to get in the water. The two adults, especially the woman look pretty scared, but they go in with the two kids. Once they go in, more people go in. There are several boats out on the water with men who have guns and are watching the water with binoculars. 

Brody sees Michael and his friends about to take a sail boat out and he tells them to use the pond instead...the pond that is connected to the ocean! How is that going to help? This is probably one of the dumbest things Brody does in the movie. 

We see the Mayor giving an interview of how he wants to reiterate that they "caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers." First of all, yes they caught A large predator, but not THE predator. Second of all what is this "injured" nonsense? That shark straight up ripped them apart and all his victims died. How did this a**hole not die (I'm talking about the Mayor!)?

There's a lot of underwater footage of legs thrashing around in the water which I'm sure look like a tasty treat for a shark. A dorsal fin pops up right behind two oblivious girls. Another girl sees the fin and starts screaming, causing a panic. The lifeguard starts blowing his whistle and Brody tries to get him to stop since the noise will just attract the shark (although I think any shark would already be attracted to this area with all the splashing). I guess there was no contingency plan for what to do if a shark appeared! But that whole scene reminded me when Sam Neill is telling everyone to stay still around the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.

Once it is revealed that it was actually two young brothers snorkeling underwater with a cardboard fin, I wondered if I was a terrible person for hoping the real shark would show up and make a snack out of one or both of them. But on the other hand (fin?), also kudos to them because these people do need to be scared out of the water. If you know there's a blood thirsty shark in the water, why would you go in the ocean? There is an amusing moment when the two boys look up and see all these guns pointed at them from the people on one of the boats. The little brother points at his older brother and tells them, "He made me do it." 

A girl standing near the estuary sees a fin and yells, "Shark!" Well, guess where it's headed for? That's right: the pond! The very pond that Michael and his friends are in! The very pond that Michael and his friends are in that is CONNECTED to the ocean! Well done, Brody, well done! :::slow clap:::

Michael and two of his friends are on the boat working on a sail. Some guy in a boat rows up to them and behind him you can see a fin. It's almost comical how obvious there is a shark in the water and nobody seems to notice it. The guy is asking the boys a question when he falls into the water and gets his leg bitten off and becomes the shark's latest victim. One hour and four minutes into the movie and this is the first time we see the shark. Previously, we had only seen his dorsal fin. 

Michael and his friends make it out of the water, but Michael has passed out from shock and is taken to the hospital. Now the Mayor realizes he's messed up and Brody wants him to hire Quint to kill the shark, which he does.

That was the first hour of the movie. Now the second hour of the movie will focus on our three main characters (Brody, Quint, and Hooper) out on Quint's shabby fishing boat attempting to find and kill their shark. 

Before he leaves, Brody's wife asks him what she should tell the kids and he replies to just tell them he's "going fishing." I mean, he's not totally wrong!

Once they're out to sea, Brody starts chumming the water to attract the shark. We get some foreshadowing when Brody accidentally unties the wrong knot (I forget what he was trying to do) of a rope that was holding canisters with compressed air. Hooper tells him, 'If you screw around with these tanks, they're gonna blow up." 

There's a passage of time (there will be a lot of these!) until Quint gets the sense that the shark is near. He straps himself into a chair that is bolted to the boat and hooks the pole to the contraption. Despite all that, I feel like that still wouldn't hold him in! He knows he has something and is reeling the line, but can't see anything. My question is, would a fishing pole really work on a shark? Especially one so big? 

Every time someone would get super close to the edge of the boat, I would scream at my TV, "What are you doing? GET AWAY FROM THERE!" Seriously, sometimes they would lean over, like they weren't expecting a huge shark to pop out from under the water. In one scene, that does happen and it made me jump a mile! 

There's more passage of time and Brody chums the water again. His back is towards the water as he's throwing chum in the water and this is that famous scene when the shark pops up right behind him. You see this scene in every retrospective or TV special about Jaws, so I knew it was coming, otherwise, it would have probably made me jump! I love Brody's reaction. He quickly stands up and stares at the shark, then walks to the cabin and tells Quint, "You're gonna need a bigger boat," unquestionably the most famous line of the movie. Hell, one of the most famous lines in cinematic history! 

Now they all see the shark swimming near the boat and Quint measures it to be 25 feet. Now, I Googled how big a great white shark gets and females are 15/16 feet while the males are 11 to 13 feet, so I guess this means this is a female shark? (Even though I constantly refer to it as a male.) Isn't one of the sequels one of this shark's offspring getting revenge on the people who killed its parent? IDK, that sounds pretty ridiculous, but I've heard the sequels are pretty bad. I've only seen the one that takes place at an aquarium (?) and even then I barely remember it. 

There is a very narrow strip of wood (it reminds me of a plank) at the front of the boat that looks very unsteady and is surrounded by a railing that doesn't look like it will keep you from falling into the water. From there, Quint shoots at the shark with a harpoon and a barrel is attached. I guess the barrel is so they know where the shark is. 

The barrel disappears under the water and more time passes as darkness starts to fall. The three men are in the cabin, having just eaten dinner when Quint tells a harrowing story of how he was on the USS Indianapolis during the war which delivered the Hiroshima bomb to the island of Tinian (yes, I had to look this up on Wikipedia!). After it was delivered, a Japanese submarine "slammed two torpedoes into [the] side" and 1100 men went into the water. The vessel sunk in twelve minutes and they didn't see the first shark, a thirteen-foot tiger shark, until half an hour in. Because their mission was top secret, no distress signal had been sent. The men huddled into groups and tried to fight the sharks away, but that didn't work and 100 men were lost after the first night. So if anyone has a vendetta against sharks, it's Quint! 

It's the next day and they have shot a second barrel at the shark. Brody wants them to lead the shark to shore instead of the shark leading them out to sea. The shark is so strong, it's able to tow the boat where he wants to go. Honestly, I'm not that surprised because Quint's boat is the shabbiest thing. It's not that they needed a bigger boat (though that certainly would have helped!), they needed a better boat. The Orca is a terrible boat for this kind of excursion. 

The shark had rammed into the bottom of the boat so now it's starting to flood and they cut the barrels away so the shark doesn't cause any more damage. They start heading towards the shore and the shark is following them.

One thing that baffled me is that when Brody attempts to call the Coast Guard, Quint takes the receiver from him and smashes the radio. Dude, what are you doing? The boat is flooding, there's black smoke coming from the cabin, the engine is about to run out of gas, and while you can see the shoreline, you're still pretty far from land. Oh, and let's not forget there's a very LARGE and very HUNGRY shark out there. (Actually, he was probably more vengeful.) Maybe he's thinking he won't get the money if the Coast Guard comes and this is his best shot to kill the shark. 

Soon half the boat is underwater because of the flooding. Quint gives the other men life jackets. Hooper wants to "pump 20 ccs of strychnine nitrogen into [the shark]." He won't be able to stick the needle into the thick skin, but if he gets into a cage underwater, he can get him in the eye or mouth. He makes it sound so easy! (Spoiler: it won't be that easy!)

The cage with Hooper is lowered into the water and here comes the shark, but it passes by him and disappears into the dark murky water. Hooper has a spear fashioned into a needle and is ready to jab the shark, but unlucky for him, the shark sneaks up from behind him and rams into the cage, causing Hooper to drop the spear. Oopsie daisy! The shark is biting at the cage and bending the bars and soon Hooper is exposed. The shark's jaws are so huge he could swallow a person whole, no problem. Yikes! Hooper fights against the shark and manages to escape and hide behind some rocks while the shark is thrashing against the cage. The other two men bring up the cage and when they see it's all mangled with no Hooper, they think the worst. 

Now the shark has leapt onto the boat's stern like he's my cat leaping up on my bed. Quint starts sliding towards the shark's upper jaws and even though Brody is doing his best to hang onto him, he slips from his grasp and slides down towards the massive jaws of the shark. He's kicking his legs against the shark, but he is no match against the aquatic man-eater and soon everything below his sternum is in the shark's jaws. While I was watching this, I couldn't help but think, That looks like fun! Not the getting mauled by a shark part, but the acting part of being in this scene and having a mechanical shark thrash you around, back and forth. It really did look like fun! Okay, yes, there's blood squirting everywhere and Quint is screaming, but it's so obvious the shark is fake and the whole thing is ridiculous, it's hard to be horrified by it. They both disappear under the water and the boat is sinking even more. Not even a minute has passed when the shark pops up again. He sure ate Quint really fast! 

Brody throws one of the canisters (remember, they're full of compressed air) into the open jaws of the shark. For some reason, the shark is trying to chow down on this metal container. For a shark who's been outsmarting the humans for most of the movie, this is the one time where he's just an idiot for the sake of the plot. 

Brody has now climbed onto the the crow's nest, the highest point of the boat, which is now almost parallel with the water and aims his gun at the shark, trying to get the perfect shot. As he finds the perfect aim and shoots, he says, "Smile you son of a -", then the canister is hit and it blows up and the shark blows up. He's 100% dead. Hooper pops up and Brody is surprised but relieved to see him and they both laugh. I guess they're going to split Quint's reward money. Actually, I wonder if they even did get paid. I can see the Mayor or whoever was supposed to hand over the reward money, refusing on a technicality since they promised it to Quint and he's gone. 

They use the barrels to swim back to shore...which still seems pretty far from where they are. But I know Roy Scheider is in the sequel so at least we know Brody made it back! 

The Great Train Hijacking

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Director: Joseph Sargent
Cast: Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Hector Elizondo, Jerry Stiller, Martin Baslam
Released: November 14, 1974

The Taking of Pelham 123

Director: Tony Scott

Cast: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, James Gandolfini, Luiz Guzman, John Turturro

Released: June 12, 2009

This is one of those instances where I not only saw the remake before the original, but I did not even know that the 2009 film was even based on another movie (which is based on a book). While both movies have their flaws, I think the original is the superior film. I thought it was going to be slow and boring (and yes, it is a bit slower than the remake), but I can see people in the '70s having a lot of fun watching this movie. Plus, the fashion is outrageously hideous. The whole color palette of this movie is brown, red, and orange. Seriously, why did the '70s love those colors?

The plot of the movies is simple: a subway car is hijacked and the perpetrators won't release the hostages until their ransom is paid by the transit police. The train is called Pelham 123 because it comes out of Pelham Bay at 1:23 pm.

Let's meet our main players: leading the heist in the '74 movie is an Englishman who calls himself "Mr. Blue" (Robert Shaw). He is joined by three other men who also have colors as code names. There's Mr. Green (Martin Balsam), Mr. Brown (Earl Hindman...you probably know him best as Wilson from Home Improvement), and Mr. Grey (a young Hector Elizondo). I'm guessing this movie inspired Quentin Tarantino when he made Reservoir Dogs! All the men are disguised in trench coats, fake mustaches, hats, and glasses. Mr. Green, who appears to be the oldest of the four men by at least a decade, is sneezing and sniffling right off the bat (and being really disgusting about it...he sneezes right into his hand; doesn't he know he's supposed to sneeze into his elbow?) and I'm thinking that this is going to be an essential part of the movie. I'll give you a little hint: it is. While Mr. Blue is calculating and cold and is able to remain calm under pressure, his successor is...not. In the remake, the perpetrator who hijacks the train is a man who calls himself Ryder (John Travolta). Very clever movie! Ryder is the complete opposite of Mr. Blue. First of all, he's wearing a black leather jacket with a ski hat and has a handle bar mustache and a neck tattoo, so their images are totally different too. There's a lot of screaming and cursing and threats and instability coming from him. He plays this very similar to the way when he turns into Nicolas Cage's character in Face/Off. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a scene later in the movie where he tells Denzel's character, "Woo wee, you good lookin'" or at least it's very close to that. I have to wonder if the movie would have been a twee bit better if Denzel and Travolta had switched places. I think Denzel would have played it more cool and calculating like Shaw. I had to laugh when I was reading the IMDb trivia for this movie and one of the entries was "Ryder is calmer in the novel and the original film, but angrier in the remake." Yeah, no kidding! Ryder has his henchmen as well but they don't play as significant a role as they do in the original.

Both men and their minions are able to separate the first car from the rest of the train and I believe there are 17 hostages in the original and 19 in the remake, but I could be wrong. When Mr. Blue and the others take out their guns, nobody hardly even blinks an eye except for one woman who gasps. The other passengers are either reading or talking amongst themselves, or in one woman's case, is dead asleep. In fact, I thought she WAS dead for the longest time, but she was just actually really drunk (we see a bottle fall out of her bag at one point) and spends the majority of the movie asleep on the subway bench. Then, when Mr. Blue announces, "Your attention please. Anyone who tries to rise is going to get shot", it is met with laughter. The only one who seems to be concerned is the woman who gasped (and she gasps again here). What is wrong with these people? Do they not see the four men with guns? Do they not realize the severity of their situation? Didn't hijacks happen all the time in the '70s? Shouldn't they be taking this a little more seriously? Someone even makes a crack about how it's usually a plane that get hijacked. I did a bit of research over at the scholarly website known as Wikipedia and it appears that there were more hijackings in the '70s than there were in the '90s, '00s, and '10s combined. So it's not like these people are strangers to hijackings...I guess they just weren't used to one on a subway! An old man asks, "Shouldn't we be let in on what's happening?" and Mr. Blue replies with, "What's happening is that you're being held by four very dangerous men with machine guns." Talk about stating the obvious!

On the other side of the coin, our are heroes. In the '74 film, Walter Matthau plays a transit cop named Zachary Garber and in the '09 film, Denzel Washington plays a subway dispatcher named Walter Garber, so a nice nod to the actor of the original film. Through the majority of the movie, Denzel is just sitting at a desk, looking a bit disheveled at times. He's very pedestrian in this. I guess they wanted to make sure this is just your ordinary guy who's not used to being a hero. It drove me crazy when he referred to the train as "one twenty-three" instead of "one two three", but once Ryder takes over the train, he refers to it by the right name.

Matthau's Garber has a couple of supporting players who help him. There's Operations Lieutenant Rico Patrone (the late, great Jerry Stiller, you probably know him best as Frank Costanza) and a man named Frank Correll who I didn't catch what his title is, but he's someone who doesn't think they should pay the money. When he hears Mr. Blue's demands, he declares, "You're out of your skull!"

Mr. Blue gets in contact with Garber at the control center and tells him he has seventeen passengers and the conductor held hostage and is prepared to kill any or all of them if they don't obey his demands which is he wants them to tell the mayor that they demand one million dollars (pretend I'm saying that in a Dr. Evil voice) in cash for the release of the car and the passengers. He wants the money by 3:13, which is an hour from now and they will kill one hostage for every minute it's late and if anyone intervenes in any way, they will start killing hostages immediately. He tells them there are three things that they should know:
1. Pelham 123 is completely in their control.
2. There are four of them and they are all armed with automatic weapons.
3. They have "no scruples whatsoever about killing."

In the remake, it's basically the same deal, except it appears the going rate for 18 hostages (there were 19 originally, but somebody has already been killed) in 2009 is ten million dollars. Inflation, am I right? He also wants his money within the hour and will also kill one passenger every minute the money is late. I did like the exchange between the two lead actor when Ryder asks Garber when he thinks a fair time limit would be and Garber replies, "Thursday?" and Ryder tells him, "I was thinking more like an hour." Now, it would have been nice to know what day it is (if they said, then I missed it) because it would be one thing if it was Friday and Garber wanted a whole week, but it was Tuesday or Wednesday, I think 24 or 48 hours would be a much more fair time limit than a freaking hour!

The very limited time limit is pointed out in the '74 movie. After Garber tells Mr. Blue that the mayor has agreed to pay the ransom, he is given very precise instructions on how the money (of which he wants all the bills to be old so the serial numbers will be random) should be sorted and prepared. He tells him he has 26 minutes remaining, but Garber says he should turn off his clock since they agreed to pay the money. As he tells Mr. Blue, "Your instructions were complicated. The money has to be counted, stacked, tied, transported, - it just isn't physically possible." While I definitely see Garber's point, I understand why Mr. Blue still has a time limit. If he turns off the clock, it could give the police the excuse to think of another way to try to stop them or not pay the ransom or something. However, 26 minutes is a ridiculous short time to prepare a million dollars in a very specific way even if there were a lot of people helping them. Ha, wasn't there a task on a season of The Amazing Race where the last three teams are at a casino in Vegas and they have to count a million dollars worth of chips and they were having a tough time with that. Of course, there are only two people to a team.

There's one particular tiny change I really loved how they handled in the remake. So in the original it is revealed to the control center that there is an off duty cop on the train as one of the hostages. They know this because there were two cops and one of them got off and reported it when the news got out. They have no idea who the cop is, but whoever it is, they can't do anything anyway. Being set in the '70s, this movie is quite cringe-y with its sexism and racism. Correll says if he was running things, he would just go in and start blasting them (this guy is a real piece of work) and wonders about the cop: "When is he going to start shooting?" Garber replies that they don't even know if the cop is a man to which Correll scoffs, "A woman cop? What the hell good are they?" Then he mumbles something about "her goddamn purse" which I didn't quite catch, but it was clearly sexist and offensive. Then, later, Garber himself dismisses the idea of a female cop when they're talking about the cop again and he says, "There's a bunch of heavily armed men down there. What chance does one lousy cop got? Especially if it's a dame." Ugh, I mean, honestly, I would think if the cop were a man or a woman, they wouldn't have a great chance. Of course the cop turns out to be a man. This is the '70s, after all. But they keep this joke going for a payoff that's quite lame. I'm jumping a bit ahead of myself, but the cop will jump off the train to pursue the perpetrators and gets shot (he's still alive, though) and is laying facedown on the tracks. When Garber sees him, he thinks it's a woman because he has long hair and says, "Everything will be okay, ma'am" or something like that. You know what they did with the cop who was on the train in the remake? They kill him off first thing. The cop tries to stop the men and is immediately taken out. Perfect. Now you don't have to deal with a lame ongoing joke with a lame payoff. Of course the original is a little more comedic than the remake, so I can't see the new one doing that so I think they handled that just right. 

The '09 movie focuses a bit more on the Garber/Ryder relationship than the '74 one does. We get more backstory on both these characters. In the original, while Mr. Blue mainly speaks with Garber, we also see him speaking with Correll and Patrone and he doesn't really care who he's talking to as long as he's getting his money. In the remake, Garber is the first person to talk to Ryder and once a hostage team is assembled with a lead negotiator who takes over (John Turturro), they send Garber home. I guess his shift was over or something. When Ryder realizes Garber is no longer there, he gets very upset and irrational and he kills Jerry, the motorman, who was also a friend of Garber's. He tells them they have sixty seconds to bring Garber back or he will kill someone else. Garber is just exiting the building when they hustle him back in and gets back to the communication center with second to spare. He asks Ryder why he killed Jerry and Ryder tells him the city of New York killed Jerry. Don't think it quite works that way, Ryder. 

Ryder has looked up Garber on the Internet and finds out he is being investigated for allegedly taking a bribe. He brings it up and wants Garber to basically confess with everybody standing around and hearing every word. Garber keeps insisting that he didn't take a bribe. He tells Ryder that he was the assistant chief transportation officer and part of his job was to go to the people who built the trains, the manufacturers, and bid on contracts for the train. He was accused of taking a $35,000 bid when he went to Tokyo to look at two different trains and chose what he thought was the best train and said it would be the train he would pick anyway. It hadn't yet been decided if he was guilty or not, but he was demoted to answering phones while they waited for the outcome. Ryder, the ever so rational person that he is, threatens to kill a passenger unless Garber admits he did it. He grabs a teenage boy who he has speak to Garber, then tells him, "You've got five second to save this kids life." What else can Garber do than confess to taking a bribe? Whether or not it's true, you have to at that point. He tells Ryder he did take the bribe and when Ryder asks him what he did with the money, he says he used it for his kids' college tuition. Now the movie never lets us know if he did take the bribe or not. Yes, he did confess, and yes, he did have a quick answer to how he spent the money, but saying you used the money for your kids education seems like fast thinking and makes you appear a little sympathetic...it's not like he said he used the money for a vacation or a big screen TV. But he had no other choice but to confess to save that kid's life. When someone wants you to confess to something, even if you didn't do it, and they're holding a gun to someone's head and tells you you've got five seconds to confess, YOU ALWAYS CONFESS YOU DID IT! I did laugh when Ryder tells the kid to say, "Thank you, Garber, for saving my life." Just the way Travolta delivers that line is really funny. 

The bribe storyline isn't in the original, but the fact that it was a Tokyo business trip is clearly a homage to the original when Garber is showing four Japanese men who are directors of the Tokyo metropolitan subway system around. There's really no reason for this except that it provides exposition so Garber can introduce the audience, through these men, to other characters and explain how certain things work. When he introduces them (and the audience) to Rico, he wants him to tell them something exciting. Patrone tells them there was a bomb scare yesterday, but it just turned out to be a cantaloupe. (How do you confuse a cantaloupe with a bomb?) They try to make a joke (a very cringe-worthy one, at that) that Garber thinks they can't understand English and calls them "dummies" and "monkeys" in front of their faces, but turns out they understand English just fine. Why they still remain polite when Garber is being quite rude in front of them, I'm not sure. 

The mayor of New York plays a role in both films. In the '74 movie, the mayor is played by Lee Wallace and in the '09 movie, the mayor is played by James Gandolfini. There is a meeting about whether or not the ransom should be paid; there are people who think it shouldn't, but the mayor decides to pay the ransom because at the very least, he is guaranteed eighteen votes (although two passengers on that train are children, so therefore aren't able to vote...also, at one point I heard a baby crying, but there was no baby on that train!). Here's a fun fact: Doris Roberts plays his wife. I didn't know it was her until I read her name in the credits, then had to go back and watch that scene and I was like, Oh, yeah, that is the mom from Everybody Loves Raymond! 

In the remake, the mayor is brought to the Control Center where he talks with Ryder who makes a deal with him: he will trade all the passengers for him and he could save the life of seventeen New Yorkers. (The number of hostages to start was nineteen, but after the death of the cop and Jerry, the motorman, the toll went down to seventeen.) The Mayor doesn't take his offer and Ryder screams at him that he didn't want him anyway.

Okay, remember the teen boy that Ryder almost kills but doesn't because of Garber's confession? (Or, should I say, "confession".) Well, he has a laptop he's using to communicate with his girlfriend (heh, if they ever did a remake of the remake, they would change that to an iPhone!). In the chaos of the takeover of the train, the laptop gets tossed underneath a seat and the connection is lost. Later, when the power is turned back on, the laptop, which is open and oh so conveniently pointed in the right direction, the girl sees what is going on and streams it live. This allows everyone at the command center to see what is going on inside the train and Garber recognizes one of the hijackers as Phil Ramos (Luis Guzman), a former motorman who killed a few passengers ten years ago when he was high on cough syrup and ran into the platform. He went to jail for manslaughter. 

Ryder has more of a backstory than Mr. Blue does. Pretty much all we know of Mr. Blue is that he was a mercenary in Africa. With Ryder, we learn that he's a Wall Street Guy. He doesn't seem like the Wall Street type with his neck tattoo, but I guess doing hard time in a white collar prison will do that to a guy. It is discovered that his real name is Dennis Ford (but I'll still refer to as Ryder for the purpose of this review) and he was released from prison two weeks ago where he served a sentence of nine years, and, -get this- he spent the last four of those years on the same cell block as...dun, dun, dun....Phil Ramos, the disgraced motorman. Why a Wall Street guy and a motorman would be at the same prison is beyond me. 

Ryder was sent to prison for insurance fraud; he stole $20 million. He tried to take a plea bargain for three years, but the judge gave him ten because they didn't recover all the city's money. Honestly, they try to make sure he has a backstory that it becomes convoluted and confusing (seriously, this guy is a Wall Street guy, seriously?).

Now it's time for the money to be delivered. In both movies, they cut it very close to the wire. In the '74 film, Garber asks Mr. Blue for more time, but he says no, not even fifteen or ten minutes more. Once the money is sorted, they have about seven minutes to make it to their location. Garber doesn't think it will be enough time and they still have to carry the money down to the track on foot. Once again, Mr. Blue has strict and precise instructions on how he wants the money delivered: two unarmed policemen will walk down the track. One will have the money and the other will have a torch which he will flash continuously from side to side. Okay, real talk here: when he said "torch", I thought he meant a literal torch and I was thinking, Now I know there were flashlights in the '70s, but once he said "flash" I knew he meant a flashlight. Calling a flashlight a torch is either a British thing or a '70s thing. Perhaps both. Anyway, back to the instructions. When the policemen reach the car, the rear door will be open and the one with the money will throw the bag under the floor of the train and they will both walk back to 28th Street Station. Mr. Blue warns him, "Any wrong moves by anyone, I will kill a hostage" and ends the conversation by telling him that he has five minutes to deliver the money. When Garber realizes the money won't reach its targeted destination by 3:13, he asks Mr. Blue if they can at least get the money to the entrance by that time and Mr. Blue agrees. At least this movie is dealing with a more reasonable villain! When there is a minute left remaining, Mr. Blue is getting ready to shoot someone unless the money is there. Garber makes an executive decision and tells him the money has arrived even though it hasn't (it's been a bit delayed because a cop car has flipped over) and Mr. Blue tells him, "You made it just in time, didn't you?" Oh, if only he knew. An astonished Garber asks him,"If we were a few seconds late, you would have knocked off an innocent person?" Yeah, I have to agree with him. I think most criminals would want to avoid killing people. If you're there to get a ransom, collect your money and go. Why add murder to your conscious? But I suppose threatening to kill someone is a good way to instill fear. Not that I would know or anything. 

During the exchange, things don't go as planned when a gun is fired by a sniper who the police have positioned in the tunnel. In return, Mr. Grey retaliates and ends up killing the conductor. What a shock; once the money is delivered, Mr. Blue calls back with more strict and precise instructions: he wants Garber to restore the power to the entire sector, then clear the local track from 28th Street to the South Ferry. He wants all the signals set to green. As always, he promises threats: if there are any red lights, he will shoot a hostage; if he sees another policeman, he will shoot another hostage; any deviation, he will shoot anther hostage. I almost wanted Garber to ask him, "What will you do if things don't go your way?", but better not goad the man with a gun and a greed for a million bucks. However, Garber does get a good shot in when he says,  "Listen, fellow, I hope you take this in the right spirit, but after this is over, you should seek out psychiatric help." Yeah, no kidding. Although Ryder needs way more psychiatric help than this guy does. 

Speaking of Ryder, in his movie, the money is late (surprise, surprise) because of an overturned car and Ryder is about to kill a young boy (he likes to go for the young passengers on his train; I guess he wants to make a statement), but another passenger, an Armed Forced guy who has somewhat made a connection with the kid and his mother, steps in front of the kid and takes the bullet for him. There is also accidental fire shot in this movie and Ramos is killed. There movie differentiates from the original when Ryder wants Garber to bring the money because then the cops won't bother him. That and because his motorman is dead and he knows that Garber was a motorman for over six years. There is talk among others on the command center side if Garber is in on this and I'm thinking, Oh, wouldn't that be a great twist if he was part of this whole setup the whole time? Spoiler warning: he's not. I guess they didn't want to veer too far from the original as the only people who are part of the plot are the four men in trench coats and hats and mustaches and spectacles. 

Ryder has instructions for the FBI agent similar to the ones Mr. Blue had for his Garber: he wants the power restored to the whole sector and the local tracks to be cleared from 68th to Coney Island with all green lights and no cops. With a gun pointed to him, Garber is forced to drive the train to the next station, then Ryder and the two remaining hijackers jump off after rigging the train to keep going...and it will because all the green lights have been ordered by him to stay on. I can't remember how, but Garber also manages to separate from the group and also manages to snag a gun. All the passengers are freaking out because the train won't stop and they realize nobody is driving it, but it manages to stop with no serious injuries. The other two hijackers are killed so Ryder is the only remaining one. Garber has followed him and confronts him on the Manhattan bridge where the police are running towards them. Ryder wants Garber to shoot him before the police reach them or he will kill Garber himself. He gives Garber a countdown of ten. Garber keeps turning his head to yell at the police who are nowhere near him and every time he kept turning his head, I kept shouting at the screen, "Don't turn your head, Denzel!" because I was worried that Ryder was going to grab the gun out of his hand. Of course the police don't reach them at the end of his countdown and Ryder goads Garber into shooting him which he does. Garber is able to pick up the gallon of milk he promised his wife he would get (in other words, he promised he would bring himself home) and most likely his bribery charges have been dropped.

So, yeah, if you're familiar with the original then you know the remake's ending is quite different. Sure, there are a few things they keep the same (like the train speeding down the tracks without a driver), but it goes a different direction, no pun intended. For one thing, Mr. Blue does not want Garber to bring him the money. He already has his motorman who's very much alive (besides, I don't think this Garber was ever a motorman.) Garber and Patrone are wondering why they want to go to the South Ferry. Is there a boat or a sea plane waiting for them? They are following the train's moves on the board at Grand Central Tower so if they stop anywhere before the South Ferry, they'll know about it. 

Without any notice the train starts moving and there's a bit of comedy when people ask "what train is moving?" and Garber says, "What's the matter with everyone? How many hijacked trains we got around here anyway?" Mr. Blue tells Garber they're moving because they're trying to put some distance between them and all the cops that are situated in the tunnel.

A cop named Detective Daniels who is keeping in communication with Garber and has an eye on everything from the streets asks Garber if perhaps the hijackers jumped off the train after setting the throttle and while they're chasing the train, the bad guys are sneaking out of an emergency exit behind them. Garber dismisses this and tells him it's impossible because of "a little gizmo called 'dead man's feature'" which is a handle that has to have a hand pressing down hard on it at all time or else the train "stops cold". It was created in the event a motorman ever "drops dead". 

They notice the train stop again and Garber tells Daniels to put detectives on every platform from 14th to the South Ferry. He also decides to join Detective Daniels so it's Patrone who gets in contact with Mr. Blue. While he wonders where Garber is, he doesn't threaten to kill anyone if he doesn't get to talk to him like Ryder did. When Mr. Blue questions where Garber is, Patrone tells him, "Even great men have to pee." And after Mr. Blue tells him to give his regards to Garber, Patrons tells him, "You can do it yourself at the arraignment." Ooh, snap, Frank Constanza! 

Turns out Detective Daniels was right and the four hijackers have managed to override the dead man's feature so the train is able to keep on running without them. This is when the policeman who is one of the hostages jumps off the train after them in the dark and crouches in the shadows to not be detected. One of them thinks they heard something, but the others just shrug it off. Meanwhile, the train is going fast, about 70 mph and the drunk woman is still passed out while everyone else is screaming. I think this woman needs help; somebody get her to an AA meeting, stat! Garber has a realization that the men must have jumped off the train, so he wants to go back to where the train was stopped for a few minutes. We probably get the most '70s line from the whole movie when Detective Daniels tells another officer, "Turn this thing around and burn rubber!"

We see the four men take off their disguises and put on different hats. I love the way Robert Shaw pronounced "moo-stash-es". You know, it's too bad we don't see a scene of Ryder in the remake peeling off his tattoo to reveal it was a fake one. That would have made a lot more sense because no way a Wall Street guy has a neck tattoo. Mr. Blue instructs them to toss their guns, but Mr. Grey wants to keep his with him in case "something goes wrong". He wants to make sure he has "some heavy artillery" with him. Mr. Blue coldly tells him, "I won't ask you again" to which Mr. Grey retorts with the worst reply he can think of: "Blow it out of your ass, Mr. Blue" and thus gets a handful of bullets in his chest. I mean, he did ask for it. 

The cop who jumped off the train after them and is hiding in the tracks takes his shot at Mr. Brown who comes out from the door and is peering around the wall on the small stoop of steps he's standing on. It is absolutely ridiculous that the cop kills him on his first try. He is laying down so already he doesn't have great aim, but the shot he has for Mr. Brown is narrow, but yet, despite all that, he kills him. It apparently takes a lot out of him because he's lying in the tracks, moaning, and Mr. Blue comes out and is about to shoot him, but this is when Garber shows up and tells him to drop the gun. Knowing the gig is up, Mr. Blue touches the live rail with his foot and electrocutes himself. Dude, if you wanted to kill yourself, why not just reach for the gun you dropped and just have Garber shoot you? I feel like getting shot would be a more desirable death than being electrocuted! Garber is cringing hardcore and I'm like, dude, I'm right there with you. Ouch. 

So the transit police know for a fact that three out of the four hijackers are dead, but where is the fourth guy, known as Mr. Green? They also know the three dead men were not the motormen, so that must leave the fugitive because somebody had to know how to drive the train. They go through a list of motormen who were recently discharged and find they have nine people to look into. We see Garber and Patrone pay a visit to a couple of them before they make their way to the apartment of Mr. Green, who they know as Harold Longman. Before they knock on the door we see the old man doing a Scrooge McDuck and literally rolling around on his bed covered in bills. When the transit police knock on his door and announce themselves, he tells them to wait a minute and hurriedly throws all of his money in the oven. Obviously this guy has never seen Breaking Bad or El Camino or else he would think of some better hiding spots for his money than a freaking oven! I did think it was a nice touch that he flushed the toilet right before he answered the door to make it look like that was the reason it took him a few minutes to answer the door. The cops have some questions for him and he tells them he works nights at Kennedy Airport as a forklift operator and had been home the whole afternoon, taking a nap. Longman is facing his bed when he's talking to the cops and sees a stack of money peeking out under the bed so he walks over and discreetly kicks it under his bed. When Garber asks him if he heard about the subway hijacking, he plays dumb and tells him he doesn't know about it and thinks he's kidding. I love Garber's deadpan reply: "Do I look like I'm kidding? Would I be here if I were kidding?" He does make a good point. 

Right before they're about to leave and come back with a warrant (as Mr. Longman points out, they need a warrant to search his place), Patrone wants to light his cigarette but doesn't have his match, so Longman invites him to use the stove. Now even though the money is in the oven and Patrone was using one of the burners, I thought for sure the money was going to be found or accidentally set on fire. Actually, what I really thought was that when Longman was busy talking to the detectives, his wife was going to come in the kitchen and turn on the oven to start dinner and by then it would be too late to save the money, but he didn't appear to be married. But nothing happens and the two cops leave, telling him they'll be back with a warrant which will give Mr. Green (gotta love that the guy who wound up with the money got the "green" name) plenty of time to hide his money somewhere else.

Busted! 

But then...something happens. Remember how I said all his sneezing was going to come back and play an important part? Well, throughout his phone calls with Mr. Blue, Garber kept hearing a sneeze in the background and at the very moment he and Patrone are about to leave, he hears that exact same sneeze and knows they caught their man. We get a freeze shot frame of Walter Matthau poking his head through the door and giving the man a "Gotcha!" look. The whole thing feels like something you would see at the end of a cheesy old sitcom complete with a "Wah-wah-wah" sound effect. Hey, I just said I preferred the original to the remake; I never said it was a perfect film!