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Assault On Precinct 13

2005, Movie, R, 109 mins

Assault On Precinct 13: Review

ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13
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Like Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978), Jean-Francois Richet's retake on John Carpenter's 1976 ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (itself an unabashed reworking of the classic western RIO BRAVO) is a slicked up, perfectly watchable update of a movie that was just about perfect on its own bleakly seedy terms. A prologue whose jittery visual style owes far too much to the opening of Joe Carnahan's NARC (2002) establishes that Detroit cop Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke) became a high-strung booze hound with a nasty prescription drug habit after an undercover drug bust went horribly wrong. Now it's New Year's Eve, the mother of all blizzards is sweeping through Detroit and Jake is late for desk duty at Precinct 13, a rundown little relic of a stationhouse in a desolate industrial area on the far edge of town. Come midnight, Precinct 13 will close up shop for good; the computers are gone and emergency calls are already being automatically rerouted. All the skeleton staff of three — Jake, about-to-retire veteran Jasper O'Shea (Brian Dennehy) and slutty secretary Iris Ferry (Drea de Matteo) — need to do is turn off the lights and lock the doors on their way out. And they still can't have their sad little goodbye/New Year's office party in peace. First Jake's department-ordered shrink (Maria Bello) stops by for a quick session. Then a prison bus carrying two guards and four prisoners — paranoid junkie Beck (John Leguizamo), dealer Smiley (Ja Rule), accused gang-banger Anna (Aisha Hinds) and crime lord Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne), who just killed a dirty undercover cop — pulls up to wait out the storm. Then a heavily-armed SWAT team comes gunning for Bishop, whose testimony could besmirch corrupt Organized Crime and Racketeering Squad chief Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne) and his crew. Naturally, everyone else in the forlorn jailhouse will have to die as well. Outmanned, outgunned and isolated — the landlines have been cut and cell-phone channels blocked — Jake gambles that by arming Bishop and the other prisoners they just might survive the night. Screenwriter James DeMonaco and Richet (whose resume is heavy on gritty crime pictures set in Paris' notorious banlieus), keep the story moving and spread around the character bits so everyone gets at a moment in the spotlight. The result is still formulaic, but it's never dull and delivers one moment as unrepentantly vicious as the original's casual murder of an adorable little girl buying an ice cream. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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