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| Remake of the classic thriller tale in which a Los Angeles police station is besieged by a gang of cut-throats who seek revenge on the cop who killed one of their members.
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Here's what our members thought of this title. 5 stars = very good, 1 star = poor.
 |  | Jake Roenick: "Don't miss, Bishop."
Marion Bishop: "Run fast, Sergeant."
Thirty years down the line from director John Carpenter's classic siege thriller Assault on Precinct 13 comes a blistering, big budget remake with a superior a-list cast, a compelling screenplay and a satisfying wealth of explosive action sequences. Retaining the thick atmosphere of dread and tortuous build up of tension that made the first version so memorable, this latest Assault is a worthy update well worth a place on your list.
Ethan Hawke takes the lead as Sergeant Jake Roenick, a burnt-out cop babysitting a secluded and near-deserted Detroit police station on its last night of service. With notorious gangster Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne) in its holding cell, Jake experiences a world of trouble as the station is then attacked by an army of dirty cops desperate to kill Bishop before he can blow the lid on their years of wrongdoing. To cover their tracks, says ringleader Gabriel Byrne, they're going to have to kill everybody inside. Every cop in the precinct and every criminal too. To survive, they're going to have to put aside their differences and work together, which basically means everyone, even the crack addict (John Leguizamo), gets a gun. But not if Jake can help it, breaking out the heavy artillery and arming every able-bodied person in the place with the means to blow the bad guys away. Outnumbered with inferior firepower, it's a desperate struggle for survival that costs both sides a lot of blood.
"My challenge in making Assault on Precinct 13 was to modernize the material without weakening the way the tension ratchets up," says French director Jean-François Richet. "I think James DeMonaco's screenplay achieved this perfectly. He created a great new character-based action thriller.
"Just as John Carpenter had referred to Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo, I looked to the Western genre to inspire me for the new film. Obviously the surface question is the physical survival of our characters but, even more importantly, their moral survival is at stake. The core of AP13 is the union of two fundamentally opposed men, Roenick and Bishop. One is a broken hero who must face down his demons; the other is a cold-blooded racketeer. They must band together, like it or not, to fight a third force which neither respects the law of the people nor the rules of crime. Thus, the spirit of Rio Bravo endures in an otherwise high-tech action movie."
Of the film's sophisticated visual style, the director says "...I wanted AP13 to be dynamic but also gritty and dark, reflecting the tense and claustrophobic atmosphere of the script. I also felt it was important to depict the violence as realistically as possible. The more realistic the fights, the higher the tension. The old precinct is set against a stark, snowy white landscape. This sets the tone for the interaction and the conflicts, external and internal, of the characters. Ultimately, the actors are the most important parts of our project, communicating fear, bravery, humility, and strength to our audience – who will then relate to the ultimate tests our characters are facing."
Armed with a very clear and precise vision of how his movie should look and play, Richet managed to blend the more emotional , character-led style of French filmmaking with the urgent pacing and explosive visuals of American thrillers. It's a blend that works very well for the movie, one that fleshes out an eclectic cast and draws us in as we witness them fighting for their lives.
"Jean-François has a quality I value," notes Hawke. "Enthusiasm. He was always so excited to be making this movie." Byrne elaborates: "It's interesting how French directors have been fascinated, for so long now, by the American style of storytelling. I found Jean-François to be quite American in the way he directed. Truffaut was hugely influenced by Hitchcock. Melville was a great director of gangster films. Some of the modern French pictures, apart from the language, seem more American than some modern American pictures. But the language of action is an international one. Action pictures rely less on dialogue and the interaction of characters and emotion. Jean-François has a very strong visual sense, yet AP13 has more impact because he made sure it was invested with emotion. And when actors can bring emotion to an action movie, it raises the ante."
Tense, involving and incredibly exciting, Assault on Precinct 13 is easily one of the best action thrillers you'll see this year. An awesome update of a classic original. Add To Your List Now!
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