Starring than Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Maria Bello, Drea De Matteo, Ja Rule, John Leguizamo, Gabriel Byrne, Brian Dennehy
Written By: James DeMonaco
Directed By: Jean-Francois Richet
Studio: Universal/ Rogue
Buy on Amazon.com link

This was another movie I wanted to watch in the theaters but never got around to it. Assault on Precinct 13 has an all-star cast, with lots of violence and it’s quite entertaining.

Assault on Precinct 13 is about a Detroit precinct closing shop after new years day. There’s a few police officers working the new year’s eve shift. Sgt. Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke) is in charge, along with Iris Ferry (Drea De Matteo), Jasper O’Shea (Brian Dennehy), who’s close to retirement. There’s a brutal winter storm happening and a bus filled with convicts can’t stay on the road anymore. On the bus, includes a high profile gang member named Bishop (Laurence Fishburne), who happens to be a cop killer. A group of masked men takes siege of the old cop building and want Bishop, dead or alive. Well alive so they can torture him, and then kill him haha. The cops inside the building realize who’s outside, and make a standoff with them. They figure that the people want them all dead because they know the identities of the people outside, so Roenick releases the prisoners to help them get through the day. Roenick and Bishop team up and put their opposites views of the law aside and work as a team. There’s twists, violence, interesting characters and it makes for great popcorn entertainment!

I wasn’t sure whether or not I was going to like this movie based on the opening scene, but I thought the film was good! It’s sort of like a zombie movie without the zombies. Yes, let me explain. People stuck in a building, trying to get out and survive the night. People getting picked off one by one. Well it’s sort of like a zombie movie haha. This movie is a remake from John Carpenter’s 1976 movie of the same title. I haven’t seen that version so I really can’t compare the two. This film has an all-star cast starring Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne. Fishburne was a bad ass in this, Drea De Matteo was hot, and Maria Bello’s character was annoying as hell! But she was hot too so i’ll let the annoying part go. Brian Dennehy was okay and John Leguizamo was a bit nutty. Gabriel Byrne does what he does when he’s a bad guy.

The movie itself had a lot of promising action scenes and at times, was quite violent & harsh. I didn’t think they would go down that road with some things like some characters dying but yeah, they did. They’re were some scenes that were taken right out of other movies though. Like for example, some bad guy was stabbed right in the eye with an icicle, which was done exactly in Die Hard 2. At least stab the guy in the eye with something else like a twig or finger haha. But I guess those aren’t very sharp. One of the reasons why I liked the movie was the idea of having to work with your enemies to fight another enemy. It just seems really interesting. What’s even more interesting is what happens when you conquer that enemy. I think one bad thing about Gabriel Byrne being in this movie is people will know right off the bat that he’s the bad guy. Oops, spoiled it but I’m sure you would have figured it out within the first 10 minutes anyway. He just seems to play bad guys a lot. You do double guess yourself on who’s bad or not within the precinct. Which is good for some suspense. You also second guess who’s going to live and who’s going to get killed.

The movie has it’s flaws but was still entertaining for me. Not every movie is perfect, and not sure why they went ahead and remade this one. Hollywood seems like they are over-doing it with the remakes lately but this one works and stands alone. If you liked the movie, there’s a few decent featurettes for you to watch like a couple of worthwhile deleted scenes, some action/stunt features and more! I’d say rent this movie but if you like the film and might want to watch it again, then go out and buy the DVD. I certainly had a fun time watching it.

Features:
Armed and Dangerous – Assault’s weapons specialist reveals how he matched gun to character for the film’s explosive shootout sequences.
Behind Precinct Walls – How the precinct building was constructed, from concept to computer screen
Plan of Attack – Assault’s stunt coordinator reveals the planning behind some of the film’s most explosive stunts.
Deleted Scenes

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC
ENGLISH: DTS 5.1 CC
FRENCH: Dolby Digital 5.1

Video:
Widescreen 2.40:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:
Spanish, French

Favorite Scenes: I didn’t like a specific scene but I enjoyed a lot of the violence within the precinct.
Rating: R
Running Time: 109 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: