The story began when then New York Subway Train departedfrom Pelham Bay Pak Station at exactly 1:23pm and it was hijack by a manwearing glasses and has a lot of tattoo who was with the three armored men. TheMetropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) employee named Garber looked at thehuge monitor where he saw that the train stopped its operation so he called thetrain operator of Pelham 123 and asked if anything was wrong. At first therewas no one responding the line but suddenly Garber was answered by the man whohijacked the train and said that his name is Ryder.
Ryder asked Garber to get acalculator with him demanding money in exchange that he will free the 17 hostagesinside the train. The exact money that he told to Garber was $526,315.079multiply to 0.
19 which is equals 10 million dollar and 1 cent. Ryder asked theexact time and Garber said that it was 2:13pm so Ryder said that he will bewaiting for the money at exactly 3:13pm and must be in cash. If the money didnot arrive on time then he will kill one passenger every minute which he didn’texactly do. The lieutenant of NYPD emergency service unit came to the RailControlling Center and he asked Garber that he will be the one to handle thenegotiation.
When the lieutenant called, Ryder got angry and he was askingwhere Garber is and that he will be the only one to negotiate with him. Ryderthreatens shoot the train operator when the lieutenant refused to get Garberback. It was too late when Garber got back to be the one to negotiate againwith Ryder.
The train operator was already shot which is a friend of Garber.The lieutenant learned that Garber was being investigated for an allegedacceptance of bribery over the contract for new subway vehicles. Ryder learnedabout it through the online articles posted when he searched about Garber. Hecalled again and made Garber confessed by threatening to kill another passengerwho begged Garber to admit it. Garber admitted that he received $35,000 bribethat he used to pay the college tuition fee of his child. Ryder admired Garberfor admitting it to save the life of the passenger and made the passenger thankGarber. The mayor now agreed to pay the 10 million dollar in exchange for thepassengers.
Unfortunately, the police vehicle which carries the money gotcaught into an accident while rushing on the way and failed to reach on time.Garber and Ryder had a conversation and based on the clues that the NYPD got,Ryder’s real name is Dennis Ford who was a manager before at a private equityfirm and got imprisoned because of investment fraud. There was an extreme dropin the market stock due to the hijack and the mayor that Ryder was actuallymanipulating the market stock by the use of put options. Ryder demands Garberthat he should deliver the money himself. When Garber gave the ransom money,Ryder brought him inside and told him to operate the train and move it to thenext station. Garber managed to escapefrom the three hijackers.
They got away and Ryder escaped from the WaldorfAstoria Hotel. Garber managed to catch up with Ryder and cornered him inManhattan Bridge pedestrian way. The police was on their way to arrest Ryderbut Ryder told Garber that he would not go back to prison again so he wantsGarber to shoot him instead. Ryder threatens him that he’ll shoot Garber if hedoes not shoot Ryder. At first, Garber did not want to shoot him but Ryder gavehim 10 seconds to pull the trigger and when the countdown was done and Ryderwas supposed to shoot him, Garber shot him in defense.
Ryder told Garber thathe was his hero. The train comes at halt and the Mayor thanked Garber forsaving the hostages and he assured him that the bribery case against him willbe put down. The relation of the movie to the economics is the stockmanipulation of Ryder in the stock exchange market. During the film there wereseveral scenes where you can see that Ryder was checking the news as well asthe stock market exchange. He used to put options to give him the right to sellan asset at a specific price then it will increase its value as the price ofthe asset drops. In the future, if the trading is at $100 and you pay $1 for the right to sell it for at least $95 then the futurewill drop to $90 dollar.
A person could buy futures for $90 and sell them at ahigher price which is $95 then a profit of at least $4 from each $1 you spendon puts. Ryder had purchased from the derivative contracts that allows them tobenefit in a leveraged way even when the stock market would drop due to thenews of their hijack. It was said that the bigger the drop of the stock marketis and the quicker it happens after the puts were purchased, then the money ofRyder and the two other guys he is with will be bigger. It was alsounbelievable how his investment went 150 times higher. The total balance thatRyder got is exactly $307,057,918.78.
