Old Vs New Week: Assault on Precinct 13

Hello all and welcome to Old Vs New Week and we start off with a John Carpenter classic and its remake.  Both films have bloody intros and dive right into their stories and while both have diverse concepts the films are more or less the same thing.  So board up the windows, douse the lights and conserve your ammo.   This is Assault on Precinct 13.

Now who the hell payin' for that window?!

Officer, Detroit is a tough town...honest.

Spoilers all around us, man! There is no escaping it!

Our story opens with a sting takes out a series of gang members in a bloody gunfire. Cannot even imagine how many shots fired forms they were filling out.  The surviving gang members swear in blood oath that vengeance will happen.  Lieutenant Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker of Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Horror High, ‘Sheba, Baby ‘, Roots and Machete Joe) a recently promoted officer is scheduled to Precinct 13. A station being torn down, paperwork and supplies shipped to its future location.  While this is not the best gig, it is Bishop’s first assignment as a Lieutenant and he will see it through.

Meanwhile in Los Cruzes, a notorious criminal named Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston of Eraserhead, The Fog, Coast to Coast, Time Walker and Airwolf) is being transported in a bus on his way to death row by Starker (Charles Cyphers of Halloween, Halloween II, Escape from New York, The Fog and Grizzly II: The Concert)

Back at the precinct, Bishop meets the remaining staff, desk sergeant  Grumpy McStereotype, filing clerk Leigh (Laurie Zimmer of American Raspberry, A Dirty Story and Survival of Dana) and dispatch operator Julie (Nancy Kyes of Halloween, Halloween II, The Fog, Halloween III, Not in Front of the Children and Lady Boss)

One of the inmates on the bus is violently ill and the only station in route is Precinct 13, with that the bus pulls in assessing the situation and hope they can lay aid to the sick man.  Blocks away a father takes his daughter with him in order to scoop up and move her nanny (Oh Mr. Sheffield) in with them.  Driving a high end Cadillac in South Central L.A. under the influence of being a dumb white guy this could get a bit dicey.

No, don't help me find the phone book. just gaze at the girl.

A shoot out later the father makes his way to Precinct 13 to safety but the combined forces of the gang follow him with their ill-gotten gains from a heist of the National Guard Armory depot, they have enough firepower to level six maybe seven city blocks.  Equipped with silencers, the lack of neighbors in the rundown area and barely any public safety of any sorts the members of the precinct, two prisoners and the remaining transport troops have to hold off this mass army of lunatics until help arrives.  

The dialogue gives the feel of a B-movie and this is Carpenter’s second film after Dark Star in 1974. Fewer dolly tracked shots and more hand held you really had to feel for those poor cameramen breaking their backs.  Given its fairly violent nature and penchant for shock and awe, this movie does invoke fear and dread for the decent folk trying to live through the night and almost seething hatred for the gang members.  In my humble opinion a gem that gets overlooked.

I...(gasp)...hate...vanilla...

Enter our remake with its bluster opening with a drug buy conducting by Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke of Dead Poets Society, Floundering, Before Sunrise, Gattaca, Great Expectations, The Newton Boys and Training Day), an undercover cop that gets found out, his bust goes pear shaped and he loses a team member because it.  Now months later he is addicted to pain killers, a damaged knee and a crap duty to watch the transfer of a precinct to another.  He has been assigned to watch over a few scumbags on New Year’s Eve.  They will have no direct communications beyond radio frequency and offloading paperwork and evidence locker. His subordinate Sgt. Jasper O’Shea (Brian Dennehy of First Blood, Silverado, F/X, Legal Eagles, Best Seller, Seven Minutes, The Last of the Finest and F/X2) are busy grumbling at the crackhead Beck (John Leguizamo of Romeo + Juliet, Spawn, Moulin Rouge!, Ice Age and Chronicles ) gang bangers Anna (Aisha Hinds of Neo Ned, Invasion, Madea Goes to Jail, Dollhouse and True Blood)  Smiley (Ja Rule of Rush Hour, Next Friday, The Fast and the Furious and Fish Tank) and the crème de crème of villainy, mastermind criminal Martin Bishop (Laurence Fishburne of Apocalypse Now, The Cotton Club, The Color Purple, Cherry 2000, Boyz n the Hood, Bad Company and The Matrix) 

Get a haircut baby face!

Before the evening even gets started, the precinct is under siege by a collection of corrupt cops, blocking radio signals and exits. Led by Captain Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne of Miller’s Crossing, Shipwrecked, Point of No Return, The Usual Suspects, Pirates, The Man in the Iron Mask and End of Days) demanding Bishop turned over to them.  Roenick gathers his staff and the crooks to save each other they need to fight back until help comes or they can escape.

Now the complaints of this movie are there is just too much.  Too much backstory, too many characters and dear God some are just over the top to the likes that would rival Doctor Doom in melodrama.  A lot of hand held work that cause really quick cuts and jumpy edits which could cause any photophobic to be wildly sick viewing it.  More explosions than an 80’s Schwarzenegger film and honestly it is a darker movie than the original.  To quote TV’s Frank, “I thought it had no texture.”   I think the main complaint I have is this really is the first time I get to see Fishburne as a sinister bastard and he didn’t get to do nearly enough other than the ritualistic tough guy talk and a bit of gun play.   At the end of the day while the remake wasn’t bad it just was way too much for one film.    Both films feel like a hybrid of Rio Bravo and Night of the Living Dead but I feel Carpenter’s has a better feel for it.