If John Carpenter's 1976 Assault on Precinct 13 was no-budget, then the 2005 version is all-budget. But instead of spending the extra dough on more squibs, the filmmakers actually focused on a good script, an up-market cast, and a director who knew when to say when in the flash department. The result is an above average meat-and-potatoes genre exercise. Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne have some deliciously devious repartee, courtesy of a strong and sometimes surprising screenplay by James DeMonaco, who wrote The Negotiator. The film does run out of gas in the last ten minutes, but by then you'll have already committed yourself to respecting a throwaway film that all involved refused to throw away.

The idea of cowboys holding down a crumbling fort as the Indians close in is nothing new. Just rent Rio Bravo. Or the original Assault on Precinct 13. But here, who is a cowboy and who is an Indian is not so obvious. It is New Year's Eve 2004 and Sgt. Jake Roenick (Hawke) is about to enter his second calendar year as a burned-out cop. Eight months earlier, two of his officers were killed during a drug bust. Now, popping the pills he keeps in a matchbox and swigging the alcohol he’s stashed in his desk, Roenick presides over Detroit's Precinct 13 as it readies to be shut down forever. Along for the precinct's final moments of service are Jasper O'Shea (Brian Dennehy) who has just announced his retirement (betcha never heard that one before) and sexy secretary Iris (Drea de Matteo), insuring that the boys in the audience have something to look at should they tire of gunfire.

When a nasty snowstorm forces a convict-ferrying bus to make an overnight detour at the precinct, no one is pleased. Not only were Jake and company hoping for a quiet night of drinks and Dick Clark, but one of the prisoners is Marion Bishop (Fishburne), a cop killer so confident of his ability to survive any assault that he plays crossword puzzles between bouts of bad-assitude. With Bishop locked up with the other criminals from the bus, the precinct is besieged by heavily armed men. It seems they've come to rescue Bishop, but that turns out not to be the case. It's the first in a series of reversals and unlikely alliances that help keep us on our toes. In order to survive the night, Roenick decides to not only release the prisoners, but give them weapons. This works well enough, except for a strung out convict named Beck (John Leguizamo), who never completely grasps the concept that if they don't put their differences on pause, they'll all be dead by morning.

Assault on Precinct 13 is a cut above in all departments. The movie may not deserve its cast, but I suspect they were attracted to a fun genre piece they didn't have to be embarrassed about. In his first English-language effort, Jean-Francois Richet is not hamstrung by a self-destructive urge to impress us with frivolous, show-off camera moves. Yes, there's plenty of fancy lighting and flying bullets, but Richet serves the movie, the movie doesn't serve Richet. The broad strokes of the story are time-tested, but DeMonaco still finds room for interpersonal moments and strong dialogue. Getting everything resolved in exciting fashion does prove beyond his reach (I have no idea why there's a forest in the middle of Detroit). But except for his inability to provide a climax to justify all that came before, he never treats the material with disdain and, at the point where other writers would have stopped for lunch, he kept going that one extra beat.

Fans of the old Precinct will probably hold their noses while watching the new Precinct. But before you dismiss the souped-up 2005 version, give it a chance. The Carpenter film turned its smallness into a virtue. It lived and died on its neo-Western atmosphere because atmosphere is free. The new Precinct can afford whatever it wants and must stand up to the demands of a vertically integrated, first-weekend obsessed, MTV/Entertainment Tonight-culture that didn't exist in 1976. Given those handicaps, it's amazing the film is any good at all.

The Video: How does The Disc Look?

The film’s theatrical aspect ratio of 2.40:1 is presented in a very clean high definition transfer.  Expect he usual improvement in the level of detail that only high definition can convey, but the transfer has a few issues and I can’t tell if spring from the filmmakers’ artistic decisions or may be a product of the transfer.  In some scenes, chroma is slightly hot and finely grained textures aren’t quite up to other HD DVDs I’ve reviewed.  And yet, I felt that the spectrum is well served, with clean whites devoid of white crush and convincing primary colors.  Shadow detail is lacking, with many scenes composed of great black voids, but that could very possibly be intentional to create a sense of tension.  Not knowing what or who is in the blackness certainly creates more anticipation than knowing. 

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 track is aggressive and enveloping. There's lots of great, deep bass both in the score and the sound effects. Gunshots and explosions cross the entire soundstage and even the loudest of them never get shrill. There is plenty of great detail in the sound as well, with clanging doors, falling bullet casings, and whiskey bottle screw caps clearly audible. The mix is well balanced among dialog, music, and effects. The front channels do a fair amount of dialog work and give three-dimensionality to the sound effects and the electronic elements of the score. The rear channels nicely conveying the rustling wind and the explosions. Dialog is very clean. It's a good, strong mix that could have been even better with a more aggressive use of the surrounds.

There is a second English 5.1 track in DTS, but the Dolby Digital Plus track is a bit more natural.  The alternate languages are in French and Spanish, both in Dolby Digital Plus 5.1. Optional subtitles are in English SDH, Spanish, and French.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

As is very often the case, the supplements have been ported over from the original DVD release. Armed and Dangerous is a 5-minute featurette about the one person no police thriller can live without: the weapons specialist. Here we have Charles Taylor explaining how the director wanted the bad guys in the film to be “over the top from regular SWAT guys.” Taylor takes us into the Gun Truck, where all the guns and ammo are stored. He also explains that each primary actor got their own gun, which fit their character. Video game fans will live their Splinter Cell dreams right here.

Behind Precinct Walls is a 7-minute short in the form of a tour of the main precinct set, designed by Production Designer Paul Austerberry. Although good enough to look real, the precinct was done entirely on a soundstage. Austerberry shows photos of real precincts that the designers used as reference. He then goes from room to room. Not a brilliant piece, but it's good for those who care about production design. The video is full screen and clean.

The Plan of Attack featurette introduces us to Steve Lucescu, the film's stunt coordinator. He takes us through the scene where Laurence Fishburne's character throws two Molotov Cocktails at a bad guy. Given the dangerous nature of the stunt, Lucescu himself played the recipient of Fishburne's fury. Safety, of course, is always Lucescu's first priority. It's a short piece, but it's interesting enough.

The Assault Team is a brief look at the movie's major behind-the-scenes players. Director Jean-Francois Richet, in a heavily accented English, explains in this featurette that realism was of the utmost importance to him. The writer and the producer are interviewed about the language barrier between the French Richet and the English-speaking cast and crew.

Caught in the Crossfire is a 12-minute making-of featurette, similar to the thousands of other making-ofs you've seen before. Everyone worth interviewing is interviewed. The plot is explained, clips are shown, and coolness is alleged. Average and pointless.

Next are six minutes of Deleted Scenes, available with optional commentary by director Jean-Francois Richet. They're not broken up into clips, it's just six minutes of continuous material. Nothing here is that important and Richet can be difficult to understand.

There is an audio commentary by director Jean-Francois Richet, writer James DeMonaco, and producer Jeffery Silver. It's an okay commentary. You're better off just skipping around as opposed to re-watching the entire film with the commentary running. Richet says he was willing to make Precinct 13 his first American movie if he had a good script and American actors. Silver talks about shooting in a very real snowstorm. DeMonaco says he and Leguizamo worked on the Beck character together. Richet's heavy accent can be hard to understand. It's not his fault, but it hurts nonetheless.

Final Thoughts

Considering the genre, Assault on Precinct 13 is a cut above in all departments. It's quiet when other thrillers are noisy and it's smart when other thrillers are dumb. It does falter in its waning moments, but not before you've solidified your opinion that the film is better than you expected. The HD DVD features a fine transfer, a pleasing audio track, and some pleasant, time-wasting extras.


Here’s a note about the apparent duplicate Buy Guide.  Our I.T. people are hard at work on a large project and have not yet had the time to modify the underlying site database formatting code to accommodate the new 0-to-10 rating scales.  So until they do, for HD on disc, I’ll insert this note and a Buy Guide at the end of the review text and leave the conventional 0-to-5 Buy Guide blank.