It’s 1997 the United States’ biggest city encloses criminals with fifty foot walls around its perimeter. John Carpenter’s Escape from New York–a commonly regarded classic action sci-fi film–stars Kurt Russell as former special forces lieutenant turned bank robber criminal “Snake” Plissken. Requested by the commissioner of the U.S. Police Force, Huak (Lee Van Cleef), Snake’s job is simple–save the president of the United States from the rampant and dangerous prison grounds of NYC. In return for the successful rescue, Snake gets his freedom back which he lost when he robbed the federal reserve depository. Begrudgingly accepting the job after seeing the possibility of freedom over inevitability of entering the prison, Snake flies in on a glider for the commander in chief. As he navigates the criminal world, he meets foes and friends, who he doesn’t know, but who not only know who he is, but also thought he was dead. The only other person inside that Snake recognizes is Harold ‘Brain’ Hellman (Harry Dean Stanton) whose past is uncertain but seems to suggest he and Snake worked together due to dialogue between the two about past experiences. Working with Brain and a few others, Snake eventually finds who is holding the president hostage–The Duke (Isaac Hayes), who, despite not appearing that scary or powerful, is in charge of the city. While under the constant pressure the city poses, Snake must also face the biggest challenge of all in pursuit of his freedom and extrinsic goals, the 23 short hours he has to complete the rescue.
The Pros
John Carpenter’s execution in creating a picture of a city overrun and destroyed by criminals in 1997 was one of the best features of this film. It becomes especially impressive to me that he did this in 1981 as well. Most science fiction movies of the 80s and 90s overestimate how developed society will be in its setting, but not Escape from New York. The design and details of the streets, shops, and buildings littered with trash and tons of graffiti shows the dedication of Carpenter and this movie’s creators dedication to a compelling setting. The modest and outstanding images of the skyline and the prison’s walls also really show an ahead-of-its-time editing job for 1981 standards of movie making technology.
The Cons
Where Escape from New York fails in my mind is definitely for one the underwhelming entertainment for a movie plot that on paper, should blow people’s socks off. I’ll preface any criticism by acknowledging my unfair movie watching standards that are credit to being subject to the latest and greatest immersive pictures that boast and flash the newest capabilities in after effects that the present day brings. This creates sort of an unfair gap and perspective for me to be judging Escape from New York on. However, in my humble opinion, if you’re making a film about an eye-patched former special forces lieutenant saving the president of the United freaking States of America from a New York City run by crazy people, then it should be a whole lot better than Escape from New York turned out in the end. I still believe, with the release date of 1981 in full consideration and acknowledgement, that this film was not as entertaining as its faulty “classic sci-fi action movie” tag suggests. There was an obvious lack of action, even with or without that being intentional from Carpenter, the movie just decided to ignore action-packed fighting or amusing battles that action films have coined.
I found the acting from Kurt Russell decent, but Snake overall failed the responsibilities of the main character to entertain. Besides the mysterious component of Snake’s background and past that kept us thinking, John Carpenter left no more room for Snake to be a head-over-heels interesting character for the viewer to really rally behind. He enters the movie a cold man and in the last scene walks out of the movie as a cold man, annoyed with the world and unchanged despite the rescue job. I don’t see any character development, which to me is an easy no-no of a film.
The plot itself also fails on its initial design. The film surprisingly doesn’t choose to pursue or give attention to the criminals’ goals or lives other than some type of 69th bridge demonstration or charge. Instead, the film revolves around Snake’s distaste towards the government despite working for them for a short period of time and his journey to save himself and the president. The end of the movie solidifies this theme as Snake asks the president about all the people who had to die for him to be saved and intentionally brings back the wrong cassette tape. The whole theme reminds me of First Blood (Rambo) a little bit with how Snake and Rambo both have their issues with “the man” or the government they formerly worked for, but have to come to grips with at the end as they have reconciled a little. Escape from New York is definitely the lesser of the two when it comes to the question of who did it better. Besides this theme, it feels like the design of the plot was rushed or something as it just has such a lack of effort to establish anything about characters other than Snake such as Brain or The Duke’s clan.
While these are all deliberate choices of John Carpenter, I just don’t like them. It also doesn’t (to me) look like the movie makes a unique statement or novel story by making these choices either. Besides the impressive futuristic editing combined with a cool stuck in the 80s look, Escape from New York is a weeping disappointment and a failure of any sort of action film. The score is a 68.