It’s a hell of a ride, filled with chills, tense moments, and some excellent action.
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These kinds of movies just aren´t made anymore. Action movies for the last decade have been, by and large, watered down for a PG-13 sensibility. The idea is that by making a movie more accessible to a large audience you´ll exponentially increase its box office draw. The problem with that philosophy is that many times the watering down of the action and violence extends to the story as well. If there isn´t any threat of death the inherent tension that comes from the narrative is significantly lessened.
That isn´t the case with the recent remake of "Assault on Precinct 13." The film opens with a quick scene that introduces the primary protagonist, Sgt. Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke). The scene, an undercover drug bust that goes horribly awry, sets the tone for the entire film. Nothing, and nobody, is sacred as police and criminals are gunned down in a hail of bullets. Roenick, who held command during the event and was wounded in the process, takes responsibility for the loss of his comrades by losing the ability to make a command decision. He loses himself in a flurry of pills and booze, becoming a familiar stereotype in the process. Eight months after the incident that rocked his life, Roenick is working behind a desk in a run-down Detroit precinct that is hours away from closing its doors forever. Roenick is afraid of taking any responsibility for a life other than his own and seems content in spending his days whiling away behind a desk.
On the flip side of the coin sits Marion Bishop (Lawrence Fisburne). Bishop is a criminal mastermind, a Godfather-style mafia boss who is perhaps better related to Pacino´s "Scarface." He is as dirty as they come, but as cool as possible while doing it. Murder without remorse, blackmail and extortion are all in a days work for Bishop. That is, until the rules are changed. Busted for the murder of an undercover cop in a church, Bishop is stripped of his power and thrown into a lockup with the understanding he´ll be spending the upcoming New Year´s holiday behind bars.
The decision is made to transfer four prisoners, including Bishop, a junkie played by John Leguizamo and a hustler played by Ja Rule to a different jail to give time off for the local boys. Bad roads and an accident change the destination to the slim-staffed and nearly deserted 13th Precinct. When a group of masked men come looking for Bishop… the poop really hits the fan and the police and convicts are forced to rely on each other for survival. To tell more would give away some of the majestic twists of the story but I´ll say that I was pleasantly surprised that the movie, while giving in to cliché, didn´t follow the direction I was expecting.
The antagonist that sets motions in event is certainly not what I was expecting. I knew nothing going into the movie and so I was surprised by many of the twists and turns in the plot. Fortunately there are enough great character moments within the cloistered precinct that filled the gaps between attempted assaults.
"Assault on Precinct 13" is tense. The narrative structure flows well from point-to-point and the characters, while familiar and rather stock, do behave in ways that make sense, from their point of view. Not logical to us as an external viewer per se, but perfectly as one trapped in an insane situation where they are forced to fight for their lives. The actors were each, in their own way, wonderful. The characters were drawn distinctly and the dialogue was snappy. Though there were a few moments when I rolled my eyes because of the dialogue and assumed I knew where the movie was going, it did well to avoid taking an expected route.
The cinematographer should be commended on using some elaborate and inventive camera tricks that give "Assault on Precinct 13" a great sense of style. The camera moves, like a long pull back through a window or a steady-cam establishing shot, harkens back to the mood masters of the 70s like John Carpenter, who wrote and directed the original film this is based on. The camera is rarely static and the style, combined with a slightly-off kilter color palate reminded me pleasantly of the work of M. Night Shymalan and Alfred Hitchcock. High praise indeed.
The movie isn´t perfect, of course. A few times I found the dialogue laughable and the characters a touch over the top, but because the story didn´t go in a direction I was expecting I was able to forgive those shortcomings. The movie didn´t feel as claustrophobic as I had hoped, and by making the location more spacious we didn´t get to see as much character interaction as I would have liked. But to that end the filmmakers created an atmosphere of distrust between the police and criminals which worked because everyone had to trust that the others were doing their jobs without supervision. I don´t know, nor really care, how closely it adheres to the original 1976 "Assault on Precinct 13" because I´m willing to judge this film on its own merits. And this version is stylistically, thematically and narratively, solid in its own right. It´s a hell of a ride, filled with chills, tense moments, and some excellent action. I enjoyed it.
Video:
The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio and the transfer looks pretty good, though not great. On the plus side the lines seemed clear and there were no film artifacts like scratches or hairs on the print. In the middle: the film is dark and grainy and that is transferred appropriately to this DVD. That fact makes the film a little hard to see at times because objects are obscured in shadows. While I may not like it the transfer accurately reflects the original theatrical presentation. On the negative side there is a lot of edge enhancement on this movie, with rings emanating from solids like faces, which is compounded by the lack of decent lighting. The movie uses a subdued color palate so the transfer doesn´t pop off the screen. It´s good, but not without its flaws.
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[release]16081[/release]