John Travolta in The Taking of Pelham 123

Cert: 15, 106mins

Starring: John Travolta, Denzel Washington, James Gandolfini, John Turturro

The Taking of Pelham 123 is all about time. John Travolta, with the help of a criminal gang and a ­moustache that should get a supporting actor credit, has hijacked a New York subway train and is holding the passengers to ransom for $10m.

After one hour he will kill a passenger and for every minute after that he will kill one more. Needless to say this requires accuracy. A timepiece you can trust. A Breitling watch, in close up, every other scene. As has been noted in the trivia page of IMDb.com, the same watch Travolta fronts ad ­campaigns for – which raises two important marketing ­questions: do you want to wear the watch of a deranged terrorist with a porno moustache and scant regard for human life? And just what watch was Anthony Hopkins wearing in The ­Silence of the Lambs to cook his livers just right?

Product placement aside, Tony Scott’s Pelham 123 does run like a classy clock: it won’t let you down, but let’s face it, you know where it’s going.

Like the best action thrillers the highlights come when there’s no action at all. The central premise is simple: a cat-and-mouse game with Denzel Washington’s train dispatcher pitted against Travolta and his timepiece in a verbal stand-off. The latter grandstanding, the former sporting the kind of stoic glare that only a man stuck at a desk after drinking half a gallon of coffee can muster.

They have to get the money to him, but it looks like it’s ­going to be late – can ­Washington hold off Travolta and a watch that “meets the highest criteria of sturdiness and functionality”?

Well, what do you think? Barring a frankly bonkers finale, The Taking of Pelham 123 is not about twists or challenging expectations. On the contrary, it’s about meeting them head on. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Everything about it is slick, reassuring and always entertaining, right down to the minor parts. James ­Gandolfini, nervously glancing at his Jaeger-LeCoultre watch as the philandering mayor; John Turturro nervously glancing everywhere as the hostage negotiator who does little negotiation. They seem to say, don’t worry, you know these guys.

And we do. Comparisons will no doubt be made with the 1974 ­original, but we shouldn’t be misty eyed. That version – with the likeable, dependable Walter Matthau in the role occupied here by the likeable, dependable Washington – was just as by-the-numbers, just as predictable and just as pleasantly distracting.

In a summer of dross, we don’t need amazing films right now, we need ­dependable ones. This will do just fine.