Assault on Precinct 13 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Assault on Precinct 13 Blu-ray Movie Review

A remake that makes some marginal improvements over the original.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater July 26, 2010

Despite the fact that the word “remake” often sends ardent cinephiles into tirades about Hollywood’s cash-grab mentality and general creative bankruptcy, not all re-envisionings are bad ideas, especially if the original film left plenty of room for improvement. Such is the case with John Carpenter’s 1976 Assault on Precinct 13, by no mean a sacred, unslayable cinematic cow. Carpenter himself was essentially remaking Howard Hawks’ 1959 fort-under-siege western, Rio Bravo, resetting it in a soon-to-be-closed police precinct beset by ghoulish gang members. (The film also draws heavily from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.) Unlike, ahem, Gus Van Sant, French director Jean-Francois Richet—making his Hollywood debut here—isn’t trying to remake a masterpiece like Psycho. Rather, he’s taking on a minor exploitation classic that—though it has its charms —was underfunded, overacted, and cheesily scripted. While Richet’s glossy remake has lost much of the inimitable pulpiness of 1970s cops ‘n’ criminals cinema, it does make marginal improvements to the story and features a strong cast.

Morpheus returns...

Ethan Hawke plays Sergeant Jake Roenick, a cop who botches an undercover drug bust, resulting in the death of his two partners. Eight months later he’s still haunted by his decisions. He takes uppers and downers to balance out his mood—“You gotta get up to get down,” he says—and swigs from a bottle of Jack for breakfast. He’s now assigned to a desk job at the city’s oldest, quietest, and most remote police station—Precinct 13—a nearly derelict building that’s set to be closed at the start of the new year. On New Year’s Eve, Jake is taking the last shift at the station with Jasper (Brian Dennehy), a veteran cop on the verge of turning in his badge, Iris (Drea de Matteo), the precinct’s sex-obsessed secretary, and Alex (Maria Bello), a police psychiatrist who may or may not have a thing for Jake. All emergency calls are being diverted to other stations, so the plan is to get drunk, watch the countdown to 2006 on TV, and close down Precinct 13 in style. Little do they know their party is about to get crashed. A prisoner transport bus carrying criminal mastermind Marion Bishop (Lawrence Fishburne)—along with a twitchy junkie (John Leguizamo), a female gangbanger (Aisha Hinds), and a fake Rolex dealer (Jeffrey “Ja Rule” Atkins)—gets diverted to Precinct 13 because of a massive snowstorm. And these aren’t even the party crashers. Out in the storm, a team of black-clad assassins with laser-sighted assault rifles surrounds the station, hell bent on killing everyone inside.

In Carpenter’s original film, the assaulters are gang members motivated by simple revenge. Here, screenwriter James DeMonaco rustles up a slightly more complex backstory, casting the bad guys as corrupt cops, led by cold-hearted Captain Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne), who have to off Bishop —and any potential witnesses—before he’s given a chance to rat them out in court. Duvall has the whole thing planned out; his cops-gone-bad are armed with the latest SWAT gear, gunshots on New Year’s will be mistaken for fireworks, and whatever carnage his team wreaks can be made to look like an attempted prison bust. And yes, there’s ample carnage by both sides. Headshots send blood spurting onto cracked panes of glass, Molotov cocktails roast intruders alive, and sniper rifles lay waste to anyone who dares to sneak outside. As Duvall’s men lay siege to the precinct, Jake chooses to free (and arm) the prisoners, strategically placing them at every entry point to the building. Much like Night of the Living Dead, those inside the precinct have to fend off wave after wave of seemingly unstoppable attackers, all while dealing internally with mistrust and betrayal.

Director Jean-Francois Richet handles the action with all the subtlety and grace of a repeat-fire machine gun—although one that, admittedly, never jams—but he occasionally relents from the violence for brief character-developing interludes that give the actors some dramatic meat to chew. Ethan Hawke gnaws on the biggest mouthful, as his Jake is emotionally conflicted and paralyzed by an inability to make decisions, a trait that’s called out by his psychiatrist, who herself suffers from crippling OCD. (Maria Bello manages to be both sexy and serious, even if she does look a bit ridiculous wearing a party dress in a snowstorm.) Fishburne, ever the magnetic screen presence, basically channels his inner Morpheus from The Matrix, giving a performance that’s cold, calculated, and impossibly confident. Gabriel Byrne is great as well, but somewhat wasted; he’s given a motive but no development, and the movie would be far better if his character was more dimensional. The only outright poor casting choices are John Leguizamo, whose schizoid junkie routine grows tiresome, and Brian Dennehy, who seems too typical as the crusty, mustachioed, soon-to-be retired cop. Their characters tend to remind us that Assault on Precinct 13 ain’t much more than an average action shoot-em-up. But, then again, it always was.

Assault on Precinct 13 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Assault on Precinct 13 made its high definition debut all the way back in 2006—on the now lost-to-time HD DVD format—but it finally comes to Blu-ray with a 1080p/VC-1 encoded transfer that looks quite stunning considering how bleak much of the film is. The opening flashback sequence is warm and honey-hued, giving the film its only taste of vivid color, but even when the snowstorm settles in, draping the picture in a cold bluish cast, the image has plenty of punch and presence. Many of the outdoor scenes have a notable sense of depth, with flurries in the foreground that might as well be falling onto the floor in front of your television screen. The film's look is contrast-y and somewhat stylized, so black levels can occasionally cloak shadow detail, but this is intentional and does give the image a bold gradation. While slight softness invades a few shots, clarity is generally fantastic, detailing every pit and pore in Laurence Fishburne's face and revealing every nuance of the set design. Natural film grain is present and exceptionally fine—so much so that you don't really notice it at all except during a few of the darker scenes—and I didn't spot any unnecessary tampering or compression- related problems.

Assault on Precinct 13 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Get ready to wake the neighbors. Assault on Precinct 13 features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that will definitely assault your eardrums, along with those of anyone within a 50' radius, if you crank it up. Gunshots are insanely loud in this film, popping off with spitfire intensity in just about every other scene. While this is good for showing off the intensity of your surround sound set-up, it's occasionally a detriment as well. Sometimes, the film is too loud during the action sequences, requiring a good deal of volume trimming (and then boosting again during the quieter, dialogue driven scenes.) The rear speakers practically burst with cross-channel activity, not just from gunfire—which zips and cracks and pings in all directions—but also blowing snow, which fills the soundfield with an eerie presence, and explosions that send debris flying from front to back. Graeme Revell's propulsive score fills the stage as well, with ominous horns and detailed percussion elements that are spread nicely throughout the 5.1 mix. Dialogue sometimes fights for presence, but there were no moments when I flat-out couldn't hear what was being said. English SDH, Spanish, and French subtitles are available in easy-to-read white lettering.

Assault on Precinct 13 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Feature Commentary with Director Jean-Francois Richet, Writer James DaMonarco, and Producer Jeffrey Silver
Gallic director Jean-Francois Richet and his writer and producer give a listenable track filled with their thoughts on the characters, the stunt sequences, and how their version differs from John Carpenter's original.

Armed and Dangerous (SD, 4:54)
Charles Taylor, weapon specialist, discusses the guns featured in the film.

Behind Precinct Walls (SD, 7:29)
Production designer Paul Austerberry gives us a guided tour of the enormous precinct set.

Plan of Attack (SD, 4:27)
Stunt Coordinator Steve Lucescu highlights how some of stunt sequences were achieved.

The Assault Team (SD, 5:17)
A miniature EPK-style featurette, with onset footage and interviews with the director, screenwriter, and producer.

Deleted Scenes (SD, 6:11)
A handful of mostly transitional scenes, with optional commentary by director Jean-Francois Richet.

Caught in the Crosshairs: Behind the Scenes of Assault on District 13 (SD, 12:34)
A pretty typical "making of" documentary, with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with most of the actors. The bulk of the featurette, though, is focused on giving a synopsis of the film.

Assault on Precinct 13 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I can see how many might prefer this remake to John Carpenter's original, and I won't begrudge them that. While director Jean-Francois Richet sometimes slips on his own slick-as-black-ice glossiness, his vision of Assault on Precinct 13 eventually finds solid footing, thanks to a sure-hand with the action beats and strong performances from the leads. The end result is a bit generic, but action fans probably won't mind. On a technical level, this disc impresses with a strong high definition transfer and a lossless audio track that lives up to the "assault" in the film's title.