I know he gets a lot of hate for this film, but I don't really understand why. He's a fantastic villain.
shareAgreed. This role was very similar in character to the guy he played in Broken Arrow, very menacing but with a touch of humour.
This means something, this is important.
Loved all these movies
shareI think he was more of a psychopath in broken arrow than in pelham 123. They both killed people, but in pelham 123 it seems more like Ryder is angry at the world and is doing all this to get back at everybody. But in broken arrow it seemed like his villain truly "got off" on hurting people and in the end was willing to detonate the bomb just for the heck of it.
The humour Travolta brings really catapults his villains to the top!
He played a great Bad guy in "Face/Off" too. So did Nicholas Cage.
shareYeah, he can be more interesting and entertaining to watch. But with Denzel it’s rarer, so it would be great to see the thespian take on another gritty villainous roles, a la Training Day.
sharehe was the best part of this movie. a bit inconsistent though -- why the death wish if was all about the money? it was like he had conflicting motivations
shareI thought the same thing
shareRyder had a lot of anger, part of all this was lashing out at the City...and also he could become rich again. He could be cold and calculating, but another part of his villainy came from being emotionally unstable. Going from a rich yuppie entitled guy to a hardcore prison stint really did a number on him.
If he didnt feel so entitled, he would have been better able to embrace that he was the cause of his own prison sentence and he wouldnt have lashed out like he did when he was released.
He's pretty old and near the end of it now, but John Travolta ended up with one of the most astonishing careers in Hollywood history.
He got to be a TV star -- on Welcome Back Kotter -- at a pretty young age, and then not too long after that had a one-two punch of back-to-back blockbusters(six months apart -- Saturday Night Fever at Christmas 1977 and Grease at 1978) that turned him into an instant superstar.
That was the 70's.
Came the 80's, Travolta had his next astonishing career development: it crashed.
Urban Cowboy(in 1980) was kind of big, promising. Blow Out(1981) by Brian DePalma was well reviewed...but tanked. The beginning of the (temporary) end. Suddenly, Travolta was in nothing but bombs. Worse, one of them was a sequel to Saturday Night Fever(Stayin' Alive) and the other had his co-star from Grease, Olivia Newton John("Two of a Kind.") An attempt to reboot Urban Cowboy in an aerobics studio (Perfect), flopped too. (Not enough music?)
And it got worse. But the next astonishing career development was "under the radar": the "Look Who's Talking" talking baby movies(voice by Bruce Willis.) Surprise hits for Travolta -- but his face wasn't allowed on the poster for the first one.
The nineties.
The NEXT (biggest) astonishing career development for Travolta came with his comeback in Quentin Tarantino's epic and influential Pulp Fiction. Travolta -- who had been greased, trim and muscled in "Stayin' Alive" -- was now middle-aged and heavy set. He was still handsome, though, and still had that sweet voice. There was still a movie star in there.
Travolta cashed in IMMEDIATELY. He "pre-booked" four roles at his "old" superstar price and he got that price(after all he didn't need to be found by audiences.) Back to back to back: Get Shorty and Broken Arrow and Phenomenon and Michael...he was BACK. And ahead of the game until... the next not-so-astonishing career developoment -- he started to cool down again.
CONT
But Travolta had one more card to play, and he had first shown the card in Broken Arrow:
Playing the bad guy. Oh, he'd been "bad" in Carrie back in the 70's but rather a sidekick to an evil girlfriend. And his character in Pulp Fiction was a hit man. And his character in Get Shorty was a gangster(reforming.)
But in Broken Arrow, Travolta went full psychotic, blow up the world bad guy. Hero Christian Slater(a star of much lower wattage) has this exchange with him:
Slater: You're insane!
Travolta: (Smiling, flashing his big teeth)" Yeah...ain't it cool!?" An entire movie fansite was founded on that line.
Once he established a willingness to play bad guys, Travolta "extended his big paychecks" for quite a few years:
Face/Off (He STARTS as the good guy, then plays the bad guy with a new face, then goes back to the good guy. But its his bad guy steals the show.)
Swordfish
The Punisher
The Taking of Pelham 123 (Much more of a wild and crazy live wire than Robert Shaw's cold as iceman in the original.)
Savages
Gotti
And others?
Its not like ALL he played were bad guys, its just that for the right price , he was WILLING to play bad guys.
And this kept his career going to where it is today...straight to streaming in the main, but still a star with a name.