Assault on Precinct 13

Well, this will be a short one. I have some excellent novel reviews hanging over me that really need to be written, but thankfully, little needs to be said about this film because there is so little to say (unless exploding and pouring forth a stream of vitriol counts... that's barely good reviewing practice though).

The plot is mind-numbingly simple: cops (inc. Ethan Hawke) closing up a precinct on New Year's Eve find themselves required to contain a certified cop-killer (Fishburne), whom some dirty cops, led by Gabriel Byrne then come after. They're all bad, basically. As is the film. Perhaps it was the atrocious dialogue that killed this for me, as I struggled even to laugh out loud at the absurdity of some of the lines, especially the 'meaningful' exchanges between Hawke and Fishburne as they are forced to ally themselves together to survive the assault.

Plot twists seem glaringly obvious and the violence is needlessly brutal, without adding anything to the film at all. It's not stylised violence one might see elsewhere and it's certainly not tongue-in-cheek gore for entertainment's sake. I honestly can't see what it, or the wooden performances, were hoping to achieve.

I tired so much of this film by about halfway that finishing it was a labour in itself. Thanks for nothing, Richet.

***

2005

Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Gabriel Byrne, Maria Bello

Dir. Jean-Francois Richet