Viking Night: Escape from New York
By Bruce Hall
October 2, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
That sky high crime rate also lent itself well to the endlessly explodey possibilities offered by the action film genre. And the task of turning this dream into reality fell to action/horror-meister John Carpenter, who decided to take a break from killing cops and teenagers to sharpen his science fiction chops on the Big Apple. The result was Escape from New York, a cheesy and intriguing futuristic techno-thriller that’s short on thrills, but long on Snake.
It is the year 1988. In this strange, distant future, a crime wave inexplicably engulfs the country. The worst offender of all is of course New York City. So, the government builds a 50 foot wall around Manhattan and dumps every junkie/rapist/murderer/illegal music downloader in America inside. They blow the bridges and put troops in New Jersey and Brooklyn, with orders to completely murder anyone who makes it over the wall. Inside there are no guards, no social services, and no rules. Gangs of crazed addicts and armed thugs roam the streets, doing whatever they want to whoever they want.
Like Sinatra said: If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
Before they throw you into this place, they give you the option of suicide and cremation. Considering the brutal fate waiting inside, it’s a truly generous offer. It’s the one they give to Army Ranger gone bad Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), who scoffs at death and thinks cremation is a delicious, creamy breakfast cereal. But there’s more to this offer than just death and more death. The government needs a man of Snake’s talents, because the President’s plane has just gone down over Manhattan island. Where the prison is. The big, deadly one that nobody ever escapes from.
That’s bad.
The President (Donald Pleasance), who is for some reason British, is immediately captured by the most powerful gang in the city They’ve threatened to kill Sir President unless all prisoners are set free and given total amnesty. Since that’s not an option, the Government decides to send Plissken to the rescue. In return, Snake gets a full pardon, free and clear. It sounds like an easy choice but since Snake is a bad-ass, he considers declining the offer. To help him decide, they inject him with everyone’s favorite inmate control tool, the head-exploding bomb pellet. Snake is going inside one way or another, and the only way he gets out alive is to get back in 24 hours with His Majesty the President. As an added bonus, he’s given a comically large digital watch that shows him (and us) the time remaining until Head Separation Sequence begins.
Show me that on paper and I say I can’t wait to see that movie. But instead of a tense action drama, this one plays out like a grim, procedural horror flick. And even that would be okay, if there’d been even one well staged action scene. Russell is more than sufficiently rugged as Plissken, so much so that the character feels wasted here. For an experienced soldier, Snake seems to spend most of his time looking super cool as he wanders aimlessly through one plot contrivance after another. There is no dramatic discovery, and no build up of genuine plot momentum. Escape from New York depends almost entirely on cliche and coincidence to move itself along.
Isaac Hayes is a moderately promising villain who gets less screen time than the opening credits, so we never really find out. Ernest Borgnine and Harry Dean Stanton put minimal effort into supporting roles that exist only to put a face to the film’s far too many apathetic story choices. Stanton is an old friend who conveniently owes Snake a debt, and Borgnine is a congenially insane cab driver, both of whom just kind of show up whenever the story runs out of ways to depict Snake walking around town with his thumb up his ass. Whatever Snake happens to need, someone is always standing around in the vicinity who just happens to know where it is, and it’s always right around the corner.
Look, I realize that sometimes this is a necessary component of storytelling. Where would actions films be if Studd McBadass couldn’t just crawl through an air duct and overhear two guards just happen to be discussing the exact location of the nuclear warhead cancel codes? Sometimes that’s fun, but not when your entire story is built on those moments, Then, it’s just the kind of bullshit you come up with in ninth grade creative writing, where your protagonist is always finding clues lying around out in the open, and every suspect is willing to talk because it’s their JOB to. It’s lazy and stupid, and it makes your hero look lazy and stupid, which makes the movie look lazy and stupid.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that Escape From New York is a great idea, but I think a lot of people like the idea more than they like the actual movie. Snake Plissken makes a great action figure, and Escape From New York is a great concept. But neither the man nor his story is all they’re cracked up to be, and by the end of it you’ll still be waiting for the fun to start, wondering how what you saw could possibly be everything. It’s like a relationship that goes nowhere until you realize you’re just friends, which is okay, but not nearly as okay as what you were looking for.
So what do I think of when I think of New York City? In this case I think of the possibilities; I think about what might have been. And it makes me sad.