ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13
The title's a lie, but so what?
A long-form homage to Night Of The Living Dead and Rio Bravo, this movie is one of John Carpenter's earliest, and one of his most widely acclaimed. I'd put it around the middle of Carp's canon, but hey, that ain't half bad, is it?
Precinct 9, Division 13 (so what, the title lies, it's not like it's about anything that matters) is about to have a bad day; sure, it's being closed down, but there's still a skeleton staff in there, some hardened cons, not to mention a crazy father who just shot the gang warlord responsible for the murder of his little girl. Unfortunately for all of them, the gangs are in no mood to be shot at; last night, six of them were mowed down by the cops, and tonight, they want revenge.
Despite the absence of substantial plot here, there's an enjoyable script that suggests at more going on than is ever explicitly apparent ("I don't sit down in chairs like I used to" indeed).
The gang that puts the station under siege is a curiously multi-ethnic mix (like the defenders themselves); and no wonder, it's composed of gangs controlled by four warlords; one black, one white, one Chinese, and one Hispanic. They're not very chatty, either. Not one gang member is shown to utter a word - or even a grunt, that I noticed. Even their guns have silencers on them.
Everything's a nicely tense, claustrophobic situation, although Carpenter doesn't turn the screws like he should. (he has said that if he were to make the movie today, he'd "pump up" the action scenes) As is par for the course in movies where we're supposed to be sympathetic with prisoners, their crimes aren't looked at, at all. One con dies early on (he appeared to have had ebola anyway), another demands that instead of a fate-deciding coin-toss, they play potatoes. And then there's Napoleon Wilson, a death-row inmate who keeps maddening viewers and other characters alike by promising bits of irrelevant information that he doesn't deliver on (why IS he called Napoleon? Why did he kill those men? What's the second thing a man should never run away from?).
There are a number of clunky moments, however, notably involving when people get shot. That white gang warlord must've been on some serious drugs to behave as he did...well, not just when he was shot, but pretty much during all his appearances, where he robotically lumbers along like a bad Frankenstein parody.
One of Carpenter's more fun scores, too. Highly recommended, even if I wouldn't praise it quite as enthusiastically as I've repeatedly heard from others. For some reason, the rave on the front is the L.A. Times saying that it's "One of Quentin Tarantino's favorite films". Wouldn't a quite direct from Tarantino be a little more appropriate? This is like a second-hand rave.
Awesome box art, too; I have no idea if that's what the posters were like for its original release. The German title appears to translate into "The End".