Product Description

A POLICE SERGEANT MUST RALLY THE COPS AND PRISONERS TOGETHER TO PROTECT THEMSELVES ON NEW YEAR'S EVE, JUST AS CORRUPT POLICEMAN SURROUND THE STATION WITH THE INTENT OF KILLING ALL TO KEEP THEIR DECEPTION IN THE RANKS.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13870 in DVD
• Brand: UNI DIST CORP. (MCA)
• Released on: 2005-05-10
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Serbo-Croatian
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 109 minutes

Amazon.com
Action buffs will have a fine time with the spray of bullets, shattering glass, and pyrotechnic silliness that makes up the bulk of Assault on Precinct 13. Updated from the little-known cops-and-robbers classic John Carpenter made in 1976 (two years before he made his name with Halloween), this high-concept thriller is mostly a lowbrow kill-fest, and is very happy with itself for being so efficient in both categories. A decrepit police station on its last night before retirement--New Year's Eve, no less--plays unexpected home to a gang of criminals who become snowbound in the basement lockup. Another mysterious gang of people who stealthily gather in the blizzard outside want one of the particularly nasty criminals (Laurence Fishburne) dead, and they'll take the rest of the precinct down too, by golly. The odd lot of characters trapped inside include a burned-out sergeant (Ethan Hawke), a sexpot secretary (post-Sopranos Drea de Matteo), an even sexier police psychologist (Maria Bello), and various other good guys and bad guys who variously go down in blazes of guts, glory, bullets, and fire. Hawke and Fishburne are opposite sides of the coin: the law, and the bathroom scale. Their need to partner in order to survive the guns outside is the movie's moral conflict, and both actors chew on Precinct 13's peeling walls and scuffed floors to drive the point home every chance they get. Obvious filmmaking fakery abounds in everything from the irksome snowstorm, frequent gunshots to the head, and a shadowy forest that conveniently presents itself in an industrial section of Detroit for the climactic showdown. No matter, this Assault is for non-thinkers who want blood and gunpowder, with no messy slowdowns for logic, please.--Ted Fry

From The New Yorker
Ethan Hawke stars in this tense and involving update of John Carpenter's influential 1976 police action thriller, which was in turn based on the 1959 Howard Hawks Western "Rio Bravo." The director, Jean-François Richet, opens the film with a slam-bang drug deal gone wrong and then slows things down for some character development-a decision that feels truly retro. The bulk of the film takes place inside a police station that's being attacked by a bunch of crooked cops. The cast includes Laurence Fishburne, Maria Bello, Ja Rule, and Drea de Matteo, all of whom give strong, no-frills performances. There's a simplicity to Richet's staging of the assault that harks back to the gritty, muscular work of Don Siegel, the director of such films as "Dirty Harry" and "The Shootist." -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

A genre film with style and substance.
Going in I was expecting an Action film with two-dimensional characters and loads of gunfire caught on film with shaky camera shots to make them seem more violent than they already are. Instead of adhering to conventional 'Action' film nonsense and one-liners, however, the makers of this film have created a story where the characters are either likeable or interesting to watch and the violence is both realistic and often incredibly brutal. There are some cliche' plot twists that appear at the expected times, but to the credit of these storytellers they do not dwell on them as if the audience should somehow be wowed or shocked by the revelation(s). Thus any predictability is overshadowed by quicksilver action sequences or character-driven moments that are equally intense. This film has a strong cast of actors led by a very capable director and a fantastic production staff that give this film more style and substance than is typical of the genre. The photography is excellent and elevates the look of this movie to a highly professional level, as do all the technical aspects such as stuntwork and gunfire during the many firefights. The action is bloody, to put it mildly, with some gruesome kills that made even a seasoned Action film fan like myself cringe and wince. What I especially love about this film and with very few other Action flicks is that all the characters either get hurt or mortally wounded at some point during the story. No one escapes unscathed. In most other Action movies it gets ridiculous to see characters running through a swarm of bullets and not getting hit; for that alone, "Assault on Precinct 13" should be raised above the average Action film fare and revered for its exceptional use of violence as a means to an end rather than as a flashy way in which to deceive an audience into forgiving a film for falling flat during the quieter moments. Both Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburn lead the way with their star-power and the rest of the cast rally around them to help the viewers care about each and every one of them. This film is a pleasant surprise and a solid addition to the Action film genre. Thank you.

A bloody modern day siege
Ethan Hawke leads a well rounded cast starring as booze and drug dependent yet ethical Detroit police Sergeant Roenick in the action thriller "Assault on Precinct 13". Eight months after a bungled drug bust in which he was wounded and two partners were killed, he finds himself in decommissioned precinct 13. He was assigned the regretable job of manning the nearly barren station on New Years Eve, with old police veteran Jasper played by an aging Brian Dennehy and precinct miniskirted secretary Iris Ferry played by the sexy Drea DeMatteo.

Concurrently big shot gangster Marion Bishop played authoritatively by Laurence Fishburne had been apprehended for a cop killing. He was being transported by bus to a secure lockup with three other perps during a driving winter snowstorm. With driving extremely treacherous the bus was ordered to wait out the storm at the deserted precinct 13.

Much to the chagrin of all involved, Fishburne was in cohoots with a legion of rogue and dirty cops led by Gabriel Byrne playing Lt. Duvall. Byrne and his minions could not allow Fishburne to reveal the details of their arrangement. They aimed to silence Fishburne, Hawke and the others trapped in the precinct house using an Alamo-like siege to kill all those that could implicate them.

This action packed thriller necessitated the collaboration of Hawke and Fishburne and all the cops and prisoners if they were to survive the attack.

The acting performances were good for the most part, also featuring Maria Bello as a conflicted police psychologist and the immensely talented John Leguizamo playing the brain fried junkie Beck.

Bad Cop......Bad Cop?????
Let us forget for a moment that Assault on Precinct 13 is a remake of a classic action movie. Taken completely on its own merits Assault on Precent 13 is a debacle. Lets start with the Rio Bravo style scenario. About a dozen people are trapped in a decaying police station in Detroit (If the Detroit location is giving you Robocop warm and fuzzies stop right now. It could have easily said Topeka in the opening credits and nothing would have changed. In fact the last bit in the forest would have made more sense.) Surrounding them are our bad guys; corrupt cops. Now I know what your thinking. Corrupt cops? Were the Nazis and drug cartels busy that weekend? Of course these are no ordinary cops. These guys are right of the cover of the latest Tom Clancy video game. Yup we have body armor; helicopters; laser sights; night vision goggles the works. So we have thirty or so high speed, low drag S.W.A.T./Special Forces types armed to the teeth verses 4 cops (drunk), 2 women in party dresses and half a dozen criminals. So how do our heroes defend themselves? Truth is they can't. They all should be dead within ten minutes tops. (Not to mention the characters inside have an annoying habit of walking past the windows.) Now an illogical scenario is no reason to completely pan a movie especially a B style action film. However with the exception of Laurence Fishburne and Ethan Hawke all the other characters seemed to be comic relief. While Ja-Rules and Leguizamo's characters are bad enough. It's Aisha Hind's minstrel show that takes the cake. Rarely has a more stereotypical African American character appeared on the modern screen. Her performance resembles a frat boy in blackface and drag acting ghetto. I thought Gabriel Byrne was a great bad guy, too bad there wasn't more of him in the movie. If you want a throiller with a good plot, this isn't for you. If you want a lot of shoot em up action, this is your movie.