Action director Tony Scott (brother of Ridley) may have a sterling resume that includes Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop 2 and Crimson Tide.But recent misfires like Domino, Deja Vu and now The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 seem to indicate that he may have lost his touch.

Sleek but uninvolving, Pelham stars Denzel Washington as an ordinary subway dispatcher whose day is thrown into chaos when a criminal mastermind (John Travolta) hijacks a subway train full of passengers. The hijacker demands a ransom of US$10million within one hour, or else one passenger gets killed every minute. It is up to Denzel, who knows the ins-and-outs of the subway system, to stop him...

Despite strong performances from the typically reliable Denzel Washington and John Travolta, Pelham suffers from a curious pacing that sees the action slow down in the third and most important act. Director Tony Scott clearly wants Pelham to be a good action movie, but he tries too hard to couple it with a social conscience.

The result? The movie fails on both counts.