chunk: In New York City, four men armed with submachine guns and using code names (Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, Mr. Grey, and Mr. Brown), wearing similar trenchcoat, glasses and mustache disguises, board the Downtown-bound 6 subway train at different station stops (Green at 59th Street, Grey at 51st Street, Brown at Grand Central, and Blue at 28th Street). The men take seventeen passengers and the conductor hostage, isolate them in the train's first car and then separate the car from the rest of the train.
  Meanwhile, Zachary Garber (Walter Matthau), a cynical and curmudgeonly yet light-hearted New York City Transit Authority police lieutenant, is leading a tour of New York's subway command center when it is interrupted by Blue's radio announcement that "your train has been taken". Blue (Robert Shaw), the leader of the hijackers, reveals their demands: a ransom of $1 million, to be delivered within one hour, or else they'll kill one passenger per minute after that.