Despite being a big fan of John Carpenter's work, especially his early films such as They Live and Big Trouble in Little China, I still have to admit that I find his style very amateurish, his stories wonderful but his scripting simplistic, and his inability to coax decent acting out of anyone very worrying. Assault on Precinct 13 is a great example of his impressive visual style and superlative central plot device, combined with the deficiencies listed above. However, as only Carpenter's second film after 1974's cult classic sci-fi comedy Dark Star, he can be forgiven in ways which do not help him in his later work.
The plot itself is simple but effective: a group of people are trapped in a nearly-abandoned police station by a heavily armed and bloodthirsty gang, after one of their number is killed by a man sheltering inside. Outnumbered and completely cut off from the outside world the few survivors, both police officers and criminals, must band together using whatever weapons they can find to hold off the vicious street gang until help arrives. Tension is what holds this film together, and Carpenter is a master of building and holding it, as he showed later with films such as Escape From New York and The Thing. A cast of complete unknowns intermittently panic, show steadfastness and attempt various unimpressive escapes.
However, despite the many plaudits showered on this film over the past 25 years its violence level is extremely low and poorly filmed. The ice cream van scene, considered by many to be one of the most heartless murders committed to celluloid, actually had me nearly giggling and Carpenter's score did little to build excitement over the scenes of carnage. The requisite gritty style is simply not part of Carpenters directorial reportoire. He is much better at the tongue in cheek humour of Big Trouble, or the horror and suspense of The Thing or Halloween, rather than the necessary heartless violence of this particular film. Also, with the thugs faceless nobodies and the heroes not much better, it's hard to feel much compassion for any of them. Without any doubt this is a reasonable effort by Carpenter, and paved the way for some of his later successes, but in itself it's an average film at best. |
