Escape from New York
Directed by:
John CarpenterCinematography:
Dean CundeyCast:
Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Season Hubley, Tom Atkins, Charles Cyphers, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau (more)Plots(1)
It is 1997 and a nearly destroyed New York City has become a walled prison for over 3 million convicted criminals who have lost, but survived, a brutal war against the United States Police Force. In this maximum security prison-city, escape has been made impossible - every bridge is mined and walled, the surrounding waters are filled with deadly electricity and the Statue of Liberty has become just another guard tower from which officers in infra-red goggles blast, on sight, any prisoners desperate enough to try to get out. Radar scanners revolve and helicopters circle the island of Manhattan endlessly. Other than the monthly food drops made by air into Central Park these outcasts are left completely on their own to prey on each other. Into this living hell one master criminal, Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), is sent alone on a mission as dangerous as the criminals within its walls; he must rescue the President of the United States whose plane crashes in New York City on its way to a world summit conference; the President is carrying papers that are crucial to the survival of the United States. (StudioCanal UK)
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Reviews (10)
I like John Carpenter, but I found out that there are some quite essential movies he made - and that there are many of them - that I haven't seen yet. Yes, this was one of them. I was expecting it to be a little bit crazier, but I definitely wasn't disappointed. There are excellent characters here, but above all, the environment is beautifully brutal. A person evolves for so long, only for this to become of them in the end. Well, we couldn't be surprised, even though the year 1997 is successfully behind us.
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Carpenter’s famous cult movie didn’t work on me. The atmosphere is fine, Russell is tough as nails, but the very premise of Manhattan as a prison (that was set up god knows why) is very silly. I know looking for logic in films of this kind is nonsense, but in Escape from New York all those inconsistencies were way too evident.
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Carpenter’s precise B-movie hit demands that you not think about the wider context of the story and instead adapt to the requirements of low-brow entertainment, but the director will pay you back with interest. Kurt Russell is great and is accompanied by a host of top-acting talent and, despite the occasional silliness, this is pure filmmaking that, even within its premise, can be taken pretty seriously. The uncontrolled “trash” fun will come with the sequel. 75%
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Typical John Carpenter’s madness set in an insanely looking New York as big prison, with tasteless and uninspiring action scenes, and characters that look like they've just had a stroke. The whole thing looks like one big fetish flick. We have a boxing ring, pseudo-futuristic machines, the World Trade Center, where a glider can land, all of that crowned by a tough and taciturn hero played by Kurt Russell, whom everyone knows and nobody calls anything other than Snake. It's crazy nonsense, but entertaining at times. The script is practically nonexistent and the plot is also nothing special. The only thing that stands out is precisely the cheapness and wackiness of the whole project, which is basically Carpenter's main weapon to impress the audience.
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A typical, distinctive Carpenter film, as only he can do it. The low budget and the associated minimalism are enough to play a solid B-movie etude about one tough guy who stood up to everyone and fucked them all up... Kurt Russell is a man par excellence, who needs little to satisfy similarly-minded fans - the pissed-off face, synth music, and an hour and a half-long sequence of tense scenes that can be described in several pages of genre textbooks today. 4 ½.
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