Assault on Precinct Thirteen

Assault on Precinct Thirteen

“Assault on Precinct Thirteen” is not so much a retelling as it is a new-improved twist on the old story: The fort is surrounded, and the defenders must fight off the attackers and deal with traitors among them.

Howard Hawks did this over and over, until after John Wayne starred for him in “Rio Bravo” (1959) and “El Dorado” (1966), he said to Wayne, I’m sending you a script for “Rio Lobo,” and Wayne said, “I’ll make it but I don’t have to read it. We’ve already made it twice.”

John Carpenter’s 1976 film, made just before his famous “Halloween,” added some touches from George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” and moved the action from a threatened sheriff’s office in the Old West to a threatened police station in the inner city. Now French director Jean-Francois Richet takes essentially the same material and makes it work with strong performances and a couple of new twists.

Precinct Thirteen is due to close forever at midnight. Burnout desk sergeant Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke), still mourning two dead partners, is working on New Year’s Eve with veteran Jasper O’Shea (Brian Dennehy), who announces that he will retire soon in one of those revelations fraught with omens. Also on duty is buxom secretary Iris Ferri (Drea de Matteo).

“We’ve got nothing here,” Jake tells her meaning there are no crimes being committed. He pops another pain killer for his bullet wound, washes it down with whiskey from an office bottle, puts up yellow tape outside his own door that says CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS.

Then things start happening. A notorious criminal named Bishop (Laurence Fishburne) has been arrested and is being transported by police bus with several other detainees including motor-mouth Beck (John Leguizamo), girl crook Anna (Aisha Hinds) and counterfeiter Smiley (Jeffrey Atkins, a k a Ja Rule). It’s New Year’s Eve, it’s a Dark and Stormy Night, the freeway is blocked by an accident up ahead, the officers on the bus decide to dump the prisoners at Precinct Thirteen which then finds itself under siege when it appears Bishop’s men outside are determined to free him.

Jake has to pull himself together long enough to command the defense of his station; he can’t call for help because all phones are conveniently inoperable land lines, cell phones, radios due to the storm.

Then it turns out that some of the forces surrounding Precinct Thirteen are not quite who they seem, which ratchets up levels of interest and danger while providing Gabriel Byrne with another of his thankless roles where he is hard and taciturn and one-dimensional enough to qualify for Flatland. No matter.

An interesting cross-section of people have been thrown together inside the station house, particularly after Jake’s shrink Alex Sabian (Maria Bello) arrives for a late-night visit, leaves for home under stress during the storm and then has to return finding herself part of the city’s most overqualified temporary psychiatric team. The prisoners also get recruited; they have to fight for their own lives alongside cops who have imprisoned them.

Every one of the basic rules apply, all of them airtight and handled with skill by Richet, who does not overdo it on frenetic action scenes. What confused me were a few plot points. One of them is how a forest just appears next to the station which in an overhead shot looks like an urban wasteland. My other problem is with a character who would have to know that Bishop will end up at Precinct 13 to be who he is and what he is, even though Bishop clearly ends up there by accident. Oh, and a tunnel shows up at a really convenient point, as tunnels often do.

It’s the kind of thing where the audacity involved becomes amusing. Everyone’s in some kind of forest in downtown Detroit? Sure, then everyone can hide behind trees. They’re running down some long-forgotten sewer tunnel? Fine, but not so forgotten that it doesn’t have electric lights.

There’s no way for that particular character to have foreknowledge of where Bishop will be and no way for him to communicate plans which are essential to the outcome?

Well then just don’t worry about it; take delight instead in such happy coincidences as John Wayne having played characters named both Ethan and Hawk.

Watch Assault on Precinct Thirteen For Free On Gomovies.