Flash Back To The Future Present
Back in my younger days, John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 was one of the first DVD's that I purchased with my low paying minimum wage job of receiving 4 whole dollars for every 2 hours. This occurring during the turbulent time in which I too believed that if I grew a mustache and had my MiniDV camera that I could create masterpieces alongside my heroes like Sergio Leone and Uwe Boll.
One of the first DVD’s to ever enter my library
Obviously my first mistake was that I actually needed a full grown 3 foot beard and a 16mm camera with black & white film to create masterpieces but I had neither and so I wilted away. Becoming a shell of a man by watching more and more movies, listening to too much hip hop, and my final vice being the amount of time spent trying to track down a reasonably priced uncut release of Salo.
Years wasted and in all that waste, I refused to transcend into the holier being that I could be but never getting around to it but now, JUST NOW, I saw a movie that reminded me of this origin story.
Why I Remember
In the year 2023, I have just seen the 2005 remake of Assault on Precinct 13 and was in complete shock at how boring it ended up being. Nobody on screen was doing anything to separate themselves or rise above from the trivial and seen before characters they were playing and the moments of action were some of the least suspense/thrilling scenes I have ever seen in a film in all my film watching years. It was amazing that when the credits started rolling and the KRS-ONE song was playing that I couldn't remember the last time where I had seen a film that made the tremendous effort to show so much of nothing.
The main character of this film is Sergeant Jake Roenick played by Ethan Hawke who has a pretty good opening prologue involving a drug deal gone wrong to give a strong introduction to his character and his state of mind but that ultimately loses any and all steam as the movie goes on. His own personal dilemma of being a drug addict/alcoholic to cope with his trauma is pretty much thrown aside as the film goes on and the corrupt cops show up.
What's this about corrupt cops? On paper, they are just the replacement for the gang members from the original but in execution, the replacement becomes the central problem as to why the film becomes so streamlined and diluted.
The character of Marion Bishop, they went about flipping the name of Bishop from the cop of the original film, is now the person that takes over the original bad guy Napoleon Wilson of the original movie, who was just a murderer being sent to death row, but in this film Bishop is a Detroit crime lord that gets caught by Detroit's finest on New Years Eve and because this story takes place on New Years Eve, the character immediately gets sent to prison because the cops wanna party but on the way to the prison, the Sheriff's transferring him and other criminals get caught up in a snowstorm that detracts them from their original destination and towards the only place around, Precinct 13.
The criminals get placed into the rusting cells and the Sheriff’s stick to the plan of waiting out the storm till the morning before proceeding to the prison. And so, the cops in the precinct start to party it up while the criminals sit around doing nothing but that's when the corrupt cops show up.
Why are these corrupt cops corrupt in the first place? The reasons remain unknown but having no other reason but to be corrupt, they show up with their super tactical force teams to take down Bishop before he has a chance to end up on the stand and testify that he is working with some dirty ass cops as well as ruin the corrupt cops' reasons for existing.
From the point of the corrupt cops showing up, the siege throughout the majority of the nearly 2 hour running time is pretty dull. People shoot here and there. People die here and there. Nobody who dies is interesting or developed enough to really give a shit about whether they die or not but the director spends a lot of time making sure that the dead are seen with a bullet hole in their head and the camera staying with them to sell the image that this shit is brutal. But it's not. It's just violence for violence sake.
The film ultimately limps its way to a final confrontation in some woods near the precinct and that's when the film gets EVEN dumber. Corrupt cops and cops that were playing straight but ended up being corrupt show up. Night vision goggles are added to the mix and Bishop tries to play off like some real bad dude but never gets a chance to show that off. This movie needed Larry Fishburne not Lawrence Fishburne. Then when its all said and done, the two leads walk away exacting justice and getting away with murdering cops/fellow officers.
To say that it's a worthless film would be too hard for there are exactly 2 moments in the film that are worth merit to be mentioned.
The Only 2 Moments of Merit
One involves a police officer who had no plans to show up for the late night celebration at the shitty precinct and ended up showing up in the middle of night as all this shit pops off. A moment occurs where they can't tell if the guy who just appeared out of nowhere and survived all these bullets flying his way did so out of his own free will to try and get laid or is a plant sent in to tell the corrupt cops the plan that they have. This moment felt more akin to John Carpenter's The Thing than this film felt in any way like John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. A real tension driven scene where Bishop and his fellow criminals had their guns pointed at this goober and the other cops with Ethan Hawke and his cop buddies pointing guns at Bishop and his criminals. It doesn't last long but the scene was pretty great in the middle of all this banality.
The other moment is in the beginning regarding Ethan Hawke's character. He wakes up 8 months later as a drug addict/alcoholic after what has happened in the drug bust gone wrong. He ain't right in the head and is coping.
There is a shot of his back to the camera while he is in the bathroom then he leans over to spit in the sink and in the mirror, he rises and we see his reflection of the mirror looking straight into the camera. This moment felt so thought out and actually out of place for what I expected so I got my hopes up. Then the film cuts with him driving out into the tundra of Detroit in December and it's amazing. This dilapidated city rusting still in time as just this frozen hellscape.
I thought this was just such a solid start to the film that I ended up fooling myself into believing that the rest of the film was going to be able to achieve some more of this but it just sort of crashed into being a generic action movie. Possibly one of the greatest bummers I have had with a film in quite some time. True blue D grade entertainment masquerading as a B movie throwback all the while striving to be something but never being able to achieve anything outside of the tried and true cinematic idea of bullets flying around.
It's one film that has been on my radar for quite some time and beyond that, there's not much else to say except for the music. The music is just there to telegraphic the emotions that the scenes fail to carry. Nothing more. Nothing less. EXCEPT for:
The Comparison
It’s easy to say that this film is a failure in of itself more so than it just being a failure at being able to do something original/interesting in comparison to the original film but what if…this film had Zero chance of being good?
For a time, the film has been playing in my head about how lackluster it all came together in the end. I then had to re-watch the original 10 times in a row to make a complete analysis of the two films and what I came back with will BLOW YOUR MIND*.
Comparison Commence
The biggest change between the two films are the main antagonists. In the 2005 adaptation, which will be now written as Ass05, they were corrupt cops. Nothing beyond the notion that they are corrupt is their reason for existing and what drives them to be villains is that Bishop is the key to them getting indicted and going to jail. Simple run of the mill stuff all around and to be honest, there isn’t much to do here. The film doesn’t take much effort to show off corruption and instead relies on the notion that the setting of Detroit and that they are cops are enough to justify their behavior.
Now in the original, which will be written as Ass76, they were gang warlords/members. The film starts off with some of their brethren getting killed in an alley by police and the next scene is of the gang warlords all getting together in a Los Angeles hellhole apartment and taking a blood oath to fuck shit up. And they do by terrorizing then killing an ice cream man then killing a little girl that just wanted some ice cream. The film doesn’t hold back from this and shows the murder which creates this sense of doom and uncertainty towards these gang warlords and ultimately what seems to be their never ending number of henchmen as the film goes on. Creating an actual villain that brings terror to screen instead of what the remake fails to offer.
For the entire siege in Ass76, there is an aesthetic all throughout that nobody is safe from being killed and a guarantee that not everyone will be making it to the morning. The set up to how insane these gang persons are is strong enough of a reason as to why that tension exists in the first place but an added layer to their overall menace is for the fact that these antagonists seem to be otherworldly. Many upon many of them get shot again and again but there just seems to be no end to them. Even when the last standoff occurs in the basement, they are running up and dying left and right with another 2 to replace those that just died. In Ass05 though, it’s the complete opposite. It seems like the narrative is chugging along as corrupt cops are getting knocked off left and right with an end in sight. We just have to wait for the movie to hurry up and get to this final confrontation that doesn’t exist in the original because it has nothing else to do. Sure, people die and the director makes sure you know but who cares?
That leads to another difference between Ass05 and Ass76 are the characters. Somehow, and this may be my own skewed perception and so forgive me, but the characters in Ass76 manage to actually be characters. The biggest failure on the remake was the super duper mastermind criminal Marion Bishop (Lawrence Fishburne) having absolutely no presence in any of his scenes. There’s all this hype revolving around him and besides knowing how to shoot a gun, there isn’t much of anything there for the viewers to react to. Sure there’s that scene where he stabs a guy in the throat but other than that 1 scene, he's whole aura is just like Ethan Hawke’s character intro which goes nowhere in the long run. Lawrence Fishburne has presence and he can do a lot with a whole lotta nothing but damn does he disappoint in being able to bring nothing to this particular role.
Compared to Ass76 and the character of Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston).
A murderer being sent to death row without a hint of remorse. The guy doesn't do much of anything besides reacting to the characters around him but it's enough. Enough to set a tone to the guy and when the bullets start flying and he has to do his part to survive, his brutality in what he needs to do is what keeps his character interesting to watch.
There is one scene though that I would like to mention in regards to his characterization. It’s where Special Officer Starker is trying to have a conversation with him on the prison bus. The conversation just mingles along with the office trying to get some info and Napoleon responds with a rewritten monologue that stems from the greatest film of all time; Once Upon A Time in the West.
He starts talking about how ever since he was a boy, there was just something to do with death hanging around him. Like something outside of his control and just a part of his destiny. Just that small piece of characterization leads you wondering as to what he meant by that if you don’t know what he means and leaves you smiling when you notice the reference.
I could go on but I feel as though I have done my duty and should go watch John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 one more time just to be sure that its a good one.
Conclusion
The remake of Assault on Precinct 13 could have been something truly fantastic. The script wasn’t probably the best but it had a far better cast than it deserved and a director that would go off to make some pretty good crime films with the 2 Mesrine films and Blood Father after this production.
Maybe me pondering on its potential to be something more is of speculation than fact but damn, what a shame all around that this didn’t manage to get out of the shadow of the original.
*most likely will not blow your mind at all