CORPORATE LINE: To survive the night, cops and criminals alike will have to unite and fight. A classic head-to-head showdown ignites in Assault on Precinct 13, an all-new update of the 1976 action thriller of the same name.
With only a few hours left in the calendar year, Precinct 13, one of Detroit’s oldest precinct houses, is closing. Amid heavy snowfall and unsafe road conditions, only a few lawmen remain on duty for New Year’s Eve. They are headed by Sergeant Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke), a good cop wrestling with bad memories of a fatal undercover op from the previous spring. Roenick and Precinct 13 have both seen better days. Early on December 31st, deep in the city, formidable crime lord Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne), is cornered by an undercover cop. Their ensuing struggle leaves the cop dead – and Bishop captured, by the Organized Crime and Racketeering squad that Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne) runs. Bishop is handcuffed and herded onto a prison bus with several criminals: junkie Beck (John Leguizamo), hustler Smiley (Jeffrey “Ja Rule” Atkins), and gang member Anna (Aisha Hinds). But the battering snowstorm stops the bus well short of its high-security destination and strands it at the remote Precinct 13 – where, as night falls, the prisoners are temporarily incarcerated. This influx of prisoners irks Roenick, almost as much as visiting police psychologist Alex Sabian (Maria Bello) does. But Precinct 13’s provocative secretary Iris Ferry (Drea de Matteo) and salty veteran cop Jasper “Old School” O’Shea (Brian Dennehy) won’t let the increasing workload deter them from celebrating…
…until two masked gunmen break in and attack the guards from the bus. The gunmen are just barely beaten back, and everyone inside Precinct 13 realizes that more will come – to extract crime lord Bishop, but also armed and ready to shoot anyone and everyone else. The cops, looking to the reluctant Roenick for leadership, and the cons, looking to the steely Bishop for an angle, must join forces to live. Fortifying themselves with minimal weaponry and maximum courage, they will not go gently into the bad night. As they fight to the death, the thin lines between good and bad bleed together.
THE GOOD: Precinct 13 is exciting although not unabashedly so.
THE BAD: There is so much that is ridiculous that it’s hard to decide where to start. How about the bus has to stop because of a storm yet the bad guys can get a caravan there. And no one is going to wonder where all these bad guys are on New Years? I’m sure their wives are telling their friends “oh, he’s out killing people?” I’m sure my wife would never question what I was doing if I had to leave on New Years.
No one is going to notice that helicopter or hear shooting? And where did that forest come from in the middle of Detroit? You don’t understand now and I don’t want to give anything away but its inconceivable how director Jean-Francois Richet introduces new aspects to this movie to make a means to an end. Need a final scene? Well let’s pretend there is a forest. Need a helicopter? Let’s pretend no one in the city will notice. How about a police chief standing outside a precinct as other guyss blow things up and never wear a mask. No one is going to look out there windows and maybe ID him? Oh yeah I forgot, Richet decided that he was going to put a police precinct in the middle of nowhere because that is the right place for a police station so they can spring in to action quickly—never mind that it might be a better idea to be in a neighborhood like every other precinct in the world. Every scene is full of these ridiculous excuses for suspending belief.
DVD FEATURES: Director Richet, Producer Jeffrey Silver, and Writer James DeMonaco discuss everything as it comes along during what is a very detailed commentary.
“The Assault Team” making of featurette goes behind the scenes with Director Richet, Producer Jeffrey Silver, and Writer James DeMonaco. “Behind Precinct Walls” is a nice production featurette in which Production Designer Paul Austerberry goes behind the scenes. “Plan of Attack” is a stunt featurette—simple as that. The extra deleted scenes are weak at best. The EPK “Caught in the Crosshairs” is a completely boring featurette.
FRANKLY: When is okay to suspend all reality for enjoyment? X-Men is a good example however isn’t the idea of Assault on Precinct 13 supposed to be that it could really happen? Isn’t that what’s supposed to make the film intriguing? Well there is nothing intriguing about Assault on Precinct 13. Since director Jean-Francois Richet wants us to suspend belief can’t we just pretend this movie never existed?
+ Charlie Craine
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.