John Carpenter's no-budget pseudo-remake of "Rio Bravo" (with heavy doses of "Night of the Living Dead" thrown in--the zombies replaced by inhuman hordes of street toughs) set in a besieged 1970s LA police station scheduled to be closed the next day, is a flawed but worthwhile 90 minutes from a flawed but worthwhile filmmaker.
The best thing about "Assault" is its bare-bones construction. There's precious little backstory, no real explanation for the heinous actions of the gang members, no extraneous "character development" for the protagonists, no scenes where they talk about how they have a wife and kids at home or are retiring tomorrow, and very few cutaways from the main action once it gets going (the lone exception being a few sequences with couple of clueless cops patrolling the neighborhood who keep missing the siege on the supposedly abandoned precinct). The only music is Carpenter's cheap-but-effective synth score, which only serves to heighten the action rather than distract us from it. It's the kind of minimalism big-budget Hollywood just doesn't have the patience for.
The film delivers some memorable sequences, to be sure. The office being shot up by silenced gunfire, so that the windows, papers, and furniture seem to be popping and jumping of their own accord; the image of the mob of gangsters silently and fluidly sliding across our line of vision in the shadows; and, of course, the incredibly jarring and appalling "ice cream" scene.
When all is said and done, however, "Assault" doesn't quite add up to a completely satisfying movie. While the psychology of the siege is well-executed, the final action sequence is a bit anticlimactic and doesn't quite live up to it. Also, the movie's less-is-more aesthetic is a bit punishing for the first 20-odd minutes before the good stuff starts--it comes across like the uninspired and weakly constructed beginning of an MST3K movie. I kept expecting a giant insect to gobble up one of the characters.
At its best, then, "Assault" is lean and mean. But at its worst, it's a bit thin.
The best thing about "Assault" is its bare-bones construction. There's precious little backstory, no real explanation for the heinous actions of the gang members, no extraneous "character development" for the protagonists, no scenes where they talk about how they have a wife and kids at home or are retiring tomorrow, and very few cutaways from the main action once it gets going (the lone exception being a few sequences with couple of clueless cops patrolling the neighborhood who keep missing the siege on the supposedly abandoned precinct). The only music is Carpenter's cheap-but-effective synth score, which only serves to heighten the action rather than distract us from it. It's the kind of minimalism big-budget Hollywood just doesn't have the patience for.
The film delivers some memorable sequences, to be sure. The office being shot up by silenced gunfire, so that the windows, papers, and furniture seem to be popping and jumping of their own accord; the image of the mob of gangsters silently and fluidly sliding across our line of vision in the shadows; and, of course, the incredibly jarring and appalling "ice cream" scene.
When all is said and done, however, "Assault" doesn't quite add up to a completely satisfying movie. While the psychology of the siege is well-executed, the final action sequence is a bit anticlimactic and doesn't quite live up to it. Also, the movie's less-is-more aesthetic is a bit punishing for the first 20-odd minutes before the good stuff starts--it comes across like the uninspired and weakly constructed beginning of an MST3K movie. I kept expecting a giant insect to gobble up one of the characters.
At its best, then, "Assault" is lean and mean. But at its worst, it's a bit thin.