The Greatest Trick

Four men hijack a subway train, and demand $1 million from the city of New York within the hour, otherwise they start killing one of their 18 hostages for each minute the money doesn’t arrive. That is the high concept plot of this tense little movie, which brings political satire, racism, sexism and colour-coded aliases (we all knew Mr Tarantino was derivative, and here’s the proof) and throws them all at Walther Matthau and Robert Shaw (among others, including Ben Stiller’s dad Jerry and Matthew Broderick’s dad James) to see what sticks. The result is a sharp and witty movie which says a lot about the political climate of 1974, and gives a rollicking ride along the way.

The way I found myself watching this movie was to compare it with how it might be made today. Firstly, the treatment of blacks and women would be seriously revised, although the film itself doesn’t mistreat them, only characters within it, and this is appropriate to the era. And in fact, Walther Matthau’s Transit Police Chief, Zachary Garber, is so conscious of these issues needing to be addressed that he comes out with some highly amusing lines. For example, throughout the movie he has been communicating with black New York City Cop Inspector Davies. When he finally meets Davies, he greets him with, “Oh hi, I, er, thought you were, er, a small guy or something.” One of the mysteries in the movie is which of the hostages is in fact a plain clothes cop; Garber is so convinced that this cop might be a woman that he continually stresses the importance of allowing for this in terms of the cop’s ability to handle the situation (inner thoughts revealed: I know that there are plenty of women on the force now, but they can’t possibly deal with things as well as men). I found all this fascinating and appropriate; watching characters who are trying to work through their prejudices is far more interesting than simply being appalled at bigots spouting off. In fact, the one character like that is killed off fairly quickly. Make of that what you will.

The issue of the cop among the hostages is done brilliantly too. In a movie made today, the audience would be told who it was via editing, the information would somehow get into the subway train and there would be ‘is it you?’, ‘is it him?’ type situations, and the character would probably do a John McClane and attempt to do something to take the hijackers down. Thank goodness none of this happens. You barely even see a shot of the passenger in question before the reveal takes place. Another difference to ‘how the film would be in the noughties’ is in the humour; there is no way a character trying to move passengers would be heard shouting this line down the phone today: “What do you mean there’s no buses? There are plenty of buses - go out and hijack some!” And would this kind of lack of care about people be allowed to be expressed in a modern movie?: “Screw the goddamn passengers! What do they want for their thirty-five cents? To live forever??”

Another thing I loved about this movie was its cynicism regarding political systems. The mayor is ill in bed when news of the hostage situation reaches him, and he simply doesn’t want to deal with it. Bullied into making a decision by his deputy, he plumps for the only way he can decide with any certainty: how it will affect his popularity. Pre-”we do not negotiate with terrorists”, seeing this is a breath of fresh air; everybody knows that every President/Prime Minister/authority figure put into a situation like this has his/her mind partly on how the response will look to the voters, but it’s a blessing to see a movie come out and say it so boldly.

I haven’t read many reviews of this movie that weren’t mainly positive; I also haven’t read many that commented on the use of language in the film. One of the characters says at one point that he doesn’t know how you can run a railroad without swearing, and it is the subway operators who prove this continuously, blaspheming to their hearts’ content. But interestingly, the characters who matter most to the audience do not tend to do this; it’s almost like scriptwriter Peter Stone understood that the characters he wanted to be popular in the movie needed to adjust the way they spoke to endear them to the audience. And it works brilliantly. So while I do prefer to watch movies without my ears being assaulted by the language, the swearing or lack of it actually makes a point in this movie.

And what is important to remember alongside all these ‘issues’, is that this is a great ticking-clock movie. The threat of death for the hostages is real, and as we see the cops desperately working out how to resolve the situation, we feel the tension right along with them. The film maintained its energy throughout, even though a large part of the movie was simply waiting for the hour to be up, and you never ever felt bored. I am totally convinced that the golden age of American cinema was the 1970s, and this is a prime example of gritty, politically aware film-making that delivers on thrills and humour too. Where has this kind of movie gone?