At the start of "Escape from New York," we are told how the crime rate in the U.S. increases 400% in 1988 (7 years in the future at the time of the film's release), prompting the entire island of Manhattan to become a maximum security prison, complete with a 50-foot wall surrounding the island, mines along the bridges that connect Manhattan to the outside world, and prison security headquartered, ironically, at the Statue of Liberty. Prisoners who attempt to escape are, of course, shot (or, more accurately, bombed) and those who are entering have the option to ask the guard for a "termination and cremation." The film opens with some great scenes of this bleak, dystopian future, where the U.S. has become a total police state. It reminded me of the opening to another classic 1980's dystopian sci-fi hit, "Blade Runner," which came out a year after "Escape from New York." I really wish we could have stuck with these scenes for a little while longer or maybe even made them the basis of an entire movie. John Carpenter grabbed my interest early in the film, showing me a world that I wished he had explored more during the movie.
But, the needs of the plot compel us to move along. Air Force One, hijacked by some revolutionary group that we never hear from again, crash lands on Manhattan Island and now the President of the United States is being held hostage by its psychotic prisoners. (Insert New Yorker joke here.) The only rescue mission that has any possibility of succeeding is to secretly send in a lone commando, who must extricate the President within 24 hours or some major talks between the world superpowers will break down.
Here, we meet Snake Plissken, well-played by Kurt Russell, an ex-commando-turned-felon who was on his way to becoming the newest New Yorker, but instead is asked (or, rather forced) to take on this mission by Police Commissioner Bob Hauk (played by Lee Van Cleef). Plissken is quite a character. Here is a true anti-hero, a man who cares nothing for the people he serves or the fate of the world. (Really, why should he care? We only entered this world 15 minutes ago and we already wouldn't want to help the powers-that-be who have made the world so bleak.) Kurt Russell does a fine job of showing us that Plissken is not a hero in the guise of a cold-blooded felon (as is usually the case with action movie heroes). Plissken is a felon through-and-through but, by reason of circumstance, he has been forced to save the day in a world not really worth saving. (Why Hauk had to pick Plissken and not one of his myriad deputies is not clear, but do we care?)
Once Plissken gets to Manhattan, the world we had seen earlier changes into a different kind of world, a kind of urban jungle hell, complete with the living dead in the form of Manhattan's heartless prisoners. It's an interesting world, but not developed as much as the one we saw at the beginning of the film and therefore not as fascinating. I was looking for more telltale signs of this being New York City, and we see some, but it feels inadequate. We also meet various characters, including a big-time boss (Isaac Hayes), one of his henchmen (Harry Dean Stanton), and (since this is, after all, a movie that takes place in New York) a cabbie (Ernest Borgnine), all of whom don't really get developed that much and so we don't really care about them as much.
Bleak future and character development aside, we're in this movie for the action. Unfortunately, we don't get enough of that either. The action scenes that are there are good, but they feel thrown together with minor threads of plot connecting them. I was hoping for a lot more. Also, there is one scene later in the movie involving Plissken duking it out with a pro wrestler that I would have cut out altogether. At the end of the film, some events occur that show Plissken's character quite well, but also left me asking questions about what would happen next, questions I wished I hadn't been left with.
"Escape from New York" had the potential to be a much better movie than it is. As it stands, it is not a bad movie. Rather, it's one that tried to do too much and ended up not doing enough justice to what it wanted to do. What it does do, it does well. It just doesn't do enough.
But, the needs of the plot compel us to move along. Air Force One, hijacked by some revolutionary group that we never hear from again, crash lands on Manhattan Island and now the President of the United States is being held hostage by its psychotic prisoners. (Insert New Yorker joke here.) The only rescue mission that has any possibility of succeeding is to secretly send in a lone commando, who must extricate the President within 24 hours or some major talks between the world superpowers will break down.
Here, we meet Snake Plissken, well-played by Kurt Russell, an ex-commando-turned-felon who was on his way to becoming the newest New Yorker, but instead is asked (or, rather forced) to take on this mission by Police Commissioner Bob Hauk (played by Lee Van Cleef). Plissken is quite a character. Here is a true anti-hero, a man who cares nothing for the people he serves or the fate of the world. (Really, why should he care? We only entered this world 15 minutes ago and we already wouldn't want to help the powers-that-be who have made the world so bleak.) Kurt Russell does a fine job of showing us that Plissken is not a hero in the guise of a cold-blooded felon (as is usually the case with action movie heroes). Plissken is a felon through-and-through but, by reason of circumstance, he has been forced to save the day in a world not really worth saving. (Why Hauk had to pick Plissken and not one of his myriad deputies is not clear, but do we care?)
Once Plissken gets to Manhattan, the world we had seen earlier changes into a different kind of world, a kind of urban jungle hell, complete with the living dead in the form of Manhattan's heartless prisoners. It's an interesting world, but not developed as much as the one we saw at the beginning of the film and therefore not as fascinating. I was looking for more telltale signs of this being New York City, and we see some, but it feels inadequate. We also meet various characters, including a big-time boss (Isaac Hayes), one of his henchmen (Harry Dean Stanton), and (since this is, after all, a movie that takes place in New York) a cabbie (Ernest Borgnine), all of whom don't really get developed that much and so we don't really care about them as much.
Bleak future and character development aside, we're in this movie for the action. Unfortunately, we don't get enough of that either. The action scenes that are there are good, but they feel thrown together with minor threads of plot connecting them. I was hoping for a lot more. Also, there is one scene later in the movie involving Plissken duking it out with a pro wrestler that I would have cut out altogether. At the end of the film, some events occur that show Plissken's character quite well, but also left me asking questions about what would happen next, questions I wished I hadn't been left with.
"Escape from New York" had the potential to be a much better movie than it is. As it stands, it is not a bad movie. Rather, it's one that tried to do too much and ended up not doing enough justice to what it wanted to do. What it does do, it does well. It just doesn't do enough.