The Taking Of Phelam 123

About ten years ago I was the lead on duty and I was working with another young girl. She answered the telephone and turned to me with a look of horror on her face. The woman on the other end of the line said that there was a bomb on the roof. The young girl couldn’t get rid of the phone fast enough so I ended up with the receiver. I identified myself as the supervisor on duty and asked the woman how I may help her. The woman said that there was a bomb on the roof and we needed to get all the children out. She didn’t want to hurt the children.

I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled on it, call security. Then I grabbed another sheet of paper and started taking notes. I was so super sensitive at the time that every word, phrase, and tone seemed to convey a meaning. I wrote down all my impressions and listened intently. Soon the room was full of security, police, and every manager in the area. There was so much confusion in that small room with people bumping into each other and asking questions. I tried to tune them out by keeping the phone on one ear and plugging the other one with my finger. The more hysterical the woman got on the other end, the more mistakes she started to make. I would ask her very clear, logical, questions and this would frustrate her even more. I wasn’t provoking her, I was just asking specific questions like when will the bomb go off? Since she wasn’t ready for all these questions she got frustrated and eventually hung up.

I had never had any specific training for bomb scares before that day, just a small piece of paper pinned to the wall that said, “What to do when someone says there’s a bomb”. I followed the protocol, asked the questions on the list, and tried to ignore all the chaos around me. It was a very intense phone call. When the woman hung up, I was pretty sure that she was a crack pot and I turned around to the sheriff and told him why I thought there was no bomb. He agreed with my assessment, everyone left, and we were expected to continue with our work day. I will never forget that experience.

When I saw The Taking Of Phelam 123 and there was that scene in the control room when the mayor and all the other suits showed up, it reminded me of the intensity that I felt many years ago when I got my phone call. I thought to myself, that Tony Scott sure got that one right, and I was really impressed with Denzel Washington’s portrayal. I was impressed with the progression of Denzel’s character and the multiple layers and range of emotion. His character was much more developed than John Travolta’s. I kept expecting to learn a few more things about him, but it never happened. I thought they where both excellent however, and the supporting cast was superb as well.

I found this movie to be a good, tight, study of what happens when people are under pressure. Whether it’s a police officer being asked to carry a fortune, an elected official trying to do the right thing, or a regular service employee trying to do his job. We never know when we wake up in the morning when we might be asked to do something heroic. Luckily in this story, Denzel Washington was up to the task.

Rating: First Run A tense thriller about an everyday hero