Travolta is the terroist leader in THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123!

By Matt Holmes / June 25, 2011

The Taking of Pelham 123 which in the last month or so, been setup at Columbia Pictures as a pre-strike film. Travolta who last played a bad guy in the 2004 comic book movie The Punisher, has played a terrorist role before and actually quite effectively in the over-the-top 2001 movie Swordfish.

Travolta will play the leader of a quartet that hijacks a Gotham subway train and threatens to kill the passengers unless a ransom is paid. The role was originated in the 1974 film by Robert Shaw.

With it being a Tony Scott movie, of course Denzel Washington (who is just frikkin' great in American Gangster by the way but I can't review it till Sunday) is on board. Washington was cast a few weeks ago as the police detective who will attempt to bring down Travolta and his hijackers. Scott is said to have rigorously pursued Travolta to star in his film and will be the latest director attempting to revive the once A-List actor back to the top of hte Hollywood food chain. Quentin Tarantino did it over a decade ago now and Scott wants to move the actor as far away from the sex change fatsuits of Hairspray as possible. The script for the remake comes from David Koepp, so a quick recap... A great screenwriter. A consistently good director, who knows this field as well as anyone. A superb lead actor playing the troubled detective, who knows that field as well as anyone. A lead villain who has been yearning for a great part, and has played a villain well in the past. A great original movie. A climate where the themes are probably more relevant than they ever were. And this can't fail right?