Assault On
Precinct 13
Starring:
Ethan
Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Gabriel Byrne, Maria Bello.
Running
time: 109 minutes
Year:
2005
Directed
By: Jean-Francois
Richet
Written
By: James
DeMonaco
Many John
Carpenter films seem to be getting the remake treatment now days. Recently we
have had the remake of The Thing. A
not so great movie that apparently is not a patch on the original (I wouldn't
know I haven't seen it). In the last few years we have also had the Halloween remake, which again was not a
patch on the original (this one I have seen). The Assault On Precinct 13 remake was released a few years before both
of these and by all accounts is yet another John Carpenter remake that has gone
horribly wrong (again I have not seen the original of this).
We start the film with a drug addicted Ethan Hawke,
motor mouthing his way through a potential drug deal. Expectantly the deal goes
awry and we find out that Hawke is in fact a cop undercover. The mission goes
horribly wrong and through his call, his two team members are killed. Eight
months later and Hawke is having psychological difficulties because of the
incident, and finds himself working in a run-down Precinct behind a desk. Hawke
is called in to work on New Year's Eve, along with other officers who are
unhappy about working this night. Hawke looks at it as an easy shift
considering the Precinct is to shut down at midnight and that he is having a
meeting with his sexy psychiatrist, Maria Bello.
Elsewhere cop killer Marion Bishop (Fishburne) has
been arrested and is being transported out of town, along with some petty
criminals, however the snow storm is causing the driver problems, and he is
forced to stop at Precinct 13 for the night, much to Hawke's disapproval.
With the prisoners locked up, Hawke gets an unexpected
guest; his sexy psychiatrist. She turns up after being stranded in the snow
ever since she left him earlier in the day. Something may cheer him up after
all. His slight cheer is short lived though, as two men break into the precinct
and Hawke and his cops engage in a shoot out, forcing their intruders out. The
only explanation they have for this is that it is Bishop's men come to break
him out of prison.
Whilst a large team set up outside, Hawke assembles
his cops ready to fight back, but when he wrestles with an intruder one on one
he finds out the man is a cop. Turns out the people on the outside are corrupt
cops bent on killing Bishop so he can't point them out in court. This means
everyone inside will have to be killed in order to keep all these cops from
going to jail. What plays out is a large force of cops attempting to bust into
a tiny precinct protected by a handful of local cops and a handful of
prisoners, meaning tension hits high inside the precinct especially between
Hawke and Fishburne.
The plot of the film is something we have all seen
before. Something that you are willing to watch when you need an easy action
flick to keep you occupied. What we have here is a full film of continuous
shoot outs, all involving pretty horrible shooters. For starters we have a man
hiding behind a bus, shooting in front of him, failing to hit two men who are
wide open, but somehow as these two men run from the fire, they manage to shoot
behind them and take this man out. From
this moment on I was expecting something silly. Next we have Hawke standing
with a semi-automatic weapon, five men lined up in front of him and he misses
them all. Some cop he is. There are also sniper's who line up shots, only to
miss them when they pull the trigger. These guys are supposed to be cops and
they can't hit a target. As you can see the shoot outs become a little silly,
and they are the only thing that keeps this film entertaining.
Ethan Hawke played his role very well in the film.
The opening scene alone was strong and I only wish the film remained like that.
Fishburne was delivering his lines in a sleazy way which was very off putting.
Ever since his role as Morpheus in The
Matrix I've found it very hard to believe him as anyone else. Gabriel Byrne
has very little to do and is just a very generic, one-dimensional action flick
character.
The sense I got from the film was that it wanted to
be Die Hard. From the snowy exterior,
to the Christmassy soundtrack all I kept thinking was Die Hard. I was just waiting for John McClane to make a dirty
vested cameo. The film is very average but watchable for an action junkie.
I think I need to sit down and watch all of John
Carpenter's work as by the sounds of it not one of the remakes is anywhere near
as good as the originals. All I have heard is excellent things about Carpenter
films and perhaps I should take people's word for it. By all accounts the
original of Assault On Precinct 13 is
far better and I recommend that you only watch this version if you can't get
your hands on that.
2.5
/ 5
Tolli
Next film to review: BLADE RUNNER
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