Assault on Precinct 13 - DVD Review

Assault on Precinct 13 is the kind of movie John Carpenter used to make well. You know the kind. Action tales based on the classic western structure of a group of heroes trapped in one place being bombarded by a group of villains. The bad guys are at the gates and it's time to defend the fort. Carpenter told this same basic story over and over again to the point that a writer, in this case James DeMonaco, realized that he could go back to one of the original Carpenter stories, and in the wake of successful '70s remakes like TCM and Dawn of the Dead and "reimagine" it for a new generation that had barely heard of the original.

In DeMonaco's loose retelling of the Carpenter Saturday afternoon B-movie classic, a cop (Hawke) and a gang kingpin (Fishburne) are forced to join sides to stop a gaggle of corrupt cops from overtaking the police station they're bunkered in and killing everyone inside. Throw in an old cop (Dennehy), secretary (De Matteo), shrink (Bello) and a few more criminals (Rule & Leguizamo) and you have the ingredients for a simple good time.

And it really doesn't get much simpler than Assault on Precinct 13, a movie full plot holes big enough to drive a police bus through but paced well enough to keep you consistently entertained. Yes, it's ridiculous that an abandoned underground tunnel, found only in the third act of the film (of course), actually has working electrical lights in its ceiling. And we don't need to get started on the magical Detroit forest, not just out of place in the cement wasteland that is Motor City but even more bizarre considering its complete lack of existence in early overheard shots of the city and police station.

If you're going to get picky about character development (Hawke and Fishburne should be lauded just for the dimension they add to the very little character that they're given), you're not going to enjoy Assault on Precinct 13 at all. But DeMonaco didn't write Assault on Precinct 13 to change the world. He adapted it in the same spirit that fueled the original, the action-over-all-else sensibility of the straightforward, rainy day, matinee action flick. Considering the junk that passes for action lately (Van Helsing, Chronicles of Riddick), keeping things this consistently enjoyable for an average running time is apparently much more difficult than it looks. It's an old-fashioned kind of action film, where its plot holes and sensibility are the reasons that it works. Find me a fan of early John Carpenter films or the John Ford westerns that inspired them and I'll show you someone who doesn't nitpick about plot holes. See the forest for the action flick and just enjoy.