THE STORY:
The year is 1997. Crime in the United States has increased by more than 400%. Air Force One is hijacked on its way to a peace summit and the President of the United States (Donald Pleasence) finds himself marooned on the island of Manhattan. Now a maximum security prison quarantined from the rest of the world, the inmates lord over the sprawling urban landscape while guards stand watch beyond the wall.
When inmates take the commander-in-chief hostage the police bring in Snake Plissken; a one-eyed, former Special Forces operative turned anti-government badass. Snake's mission: rescue the president and retrieve a special cassette with a speech intended for the peace summit. As a failsafe, Snake's been injected with nano-explosives that'll go off should he fail to succeed within the alotted 24 hours.
This pisses him off. The film that follows is a definitive testament of why you should never piss Snake Plissken off.
OUR TAKE:
Fitting that on a day when the United States government shuts down we get to pull back the curtain on John Carpenter's Escape From New York. There's some darkly cynical political messages below the surface of this cheesy 80s sci-fi actioner. And yes, Escape From New York is cheesy, but it owns its cheese in spectacular Carpenter fashion. This is a film set in the far off future of 1997 and driven by a rocking synth score. Few films of that description have had the honor of aging as well as Escape has; but those films didn't have Kurt Russell.
Indeed, Kurt Russell went from a child actor (who appeared uncredited with Elvis Presley) to a fresh-faced adult actor (who played Elvis Presley). The director on the set of Elvis had been observing Russell, noticing the performer's uncanny knack for impressions and character work. Believing Russell was right for the lead in a script he was writing, the filmmaker went about convincing the studio to cast him in his upcoming movie. That director was John Carpenter; the film, Escape From New York. The rest is a history lesson in badassery.
Carpenter began writing Escape at a time when soldiers were still returning from Vietnam. In this light, Snake does indeed feel like a character born out of that mould. What makes Snake interesting (and aytypical for an action hero of this time) is his perceived pacifism. Snake doesn't care about the president, the peace summit, New York, ect. His first thought when Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) gives him the mission is to turn the plane around as soon as he gets up in the air. This is a character who no longer wants to deal with the increasingly corrupt bureaucratic path his country is heading down. There's no MacGruber-esque scene where Snake busts into a control room and heroically volunteers to take the mission. When he gets to New York there's no family or lover to give him added stake in what he's fighting for. He's a survivalist looking for a way out. Leave him alone and he'll leave you alone. Back him into a corner and this happens:
Escape From New York, for as fun a ride as it is, is never not a bleak work. Go to New York now and Times Square looks like Disneyland, but it wasn't always that way. Carpenter's Manhattan represents a potential future for the degraded, crime-addled metropolis of 1970s New York. I once had a teacher remark that New York isn't as fun as it used to be, that he could no longer brown bag a beer and chat up prostitutes as he and his wife made their way through Times Square (believe it or not this teacher won national awards). I wonder if Carpenter would agree, as the falsehood of the clean, corporate New York represents its own kind of imprisonment. There's something about the New York of old and its hyper realistic depiction here that's almost refreshing. There's no bullshit, no fluff. Got a bunch of prisoners? Put 'em in New York and let them sort it out. Inserting Pleasence's president in the middle of this urban decay, this out-of-control mess he helped create, is a measure of Carpenter's innate genius. That they send in the one guy who could give a shit about retrieving him, gives the film an added layer of nihilism.
But that's getting too dark, and the truth is that Escape From New York is a blast. Russell's Snake is so over the top gruff that it sets a winning tone for the entire film. You can't help but root for the one guy who sees how ridiculous all of this is. Ernest Borgnine adds a enough as Cabbie. He grates at times, but he's as charmingly aloof as any sidekick ever. Van Cleef is equally great as the hardass forcing Snake into this disaster (which is dumb on his part when you think about it). Speaking of sidekicks, Tom Atkins. The only crime Tom Atkins ever committed was not starring in all John Carpenter movies. Harry Dean Stanton and Adrianne Barbeau bring so much to the film as Brain and Maggie that, if you're surprised by Maggie's final choice, you haven't been paying attention. Isaac Hayes seems like an odd choice for The Duke of New York, but only because his career afterward made him out to be such a teddy bear.
My one caveat: What the hell is wrong with Pleasence's president that he can't just read the speech? We never find out exactly what's on the cassette but, last I checked, learning to read and write is a good trait for the leader of the free world to have.
IS THERE A BADASS?
Nope, no badasses here.
Okay, maybe one.
YESTHEREISAFUCKINGBADASS. This movie has the badass — the definitive badass of Carpenter's ouvre and the reason this category exists. Snake Plissken doesn't care who you are or what you need from him. This is a man who, holding a cassette (!) that could change the world for the better, opts instead to just break it apart and find a cot to nap on. Because he knows better than you, and world peace is a bullshit notion anyway.
CREEP-OUT GROTESQUERIES:
Escape From New York is relatively light on gore. It's violent and adult-oriented for sure. It's just not the sort of viscera with which you've come to expect from Carpenter. In line with other science-fiction and action movies of the time.
CASUALTIES:
Thirty-seven, which is a lot even for Carpenter. Ironically, it's the evil, hijacking stewardess that commands the most kills, clocking in with a hearty dozen — in rather short order, I might add.
WHAT ABOUT THE SCORE?
Slow melodic beats countered with heavy, atmospheric snyth. Moreso than Halloween, Carpenter refines the style and sound that would continue on in his later works. Track #2 from the remastered edition in 2000, titled "The Bank Robbery," has become a perennial go-to for me as a listener.
THE FINAL CUT:
A definitive work in Carpenter's filmmography, Escape From New York endures in so small part thanks to its own revelry in a bleak premise, Carpenter's tight direction and the discovery of an A-List talent in Russell. Its status as an action classic is secure. You are A-number 1.
