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Dom Robinson reviews

Escape From New York

One man against 3 million criminals
in a bid to rescue the President.

Distributed by

John Carpenter's Escape From New York is the prequel to 1996's Escape From L.A., with Kurt Russell first taking on his role of Snake Plissken.

In 1988, the crime rate in the USA rises 400%. To curb the rampant violence in the streets, the once great city of New York becomes the one maximum security blockade in the entire country. A fifty foot containment wall is erected, completely surrounding and isolating Manhattan Island. All bridges and waterways are mined. The US Police Force, like an army, is encamped all around the prison and helicopters circle overhead incessantly. There are no guards inside, only the prisoners, left to live on their own in a place where lawlessness reigns supreme and there is only one rule: once you get in, you don't come out!

It's now 1997. The plane conducting the American President to summit meeting of world leaders is abducted by terrorists and crash-lands in New York. Before the Police Force can reach him, the President is taken hostage. The only way to rescue him in time for the decisive conference is to have a prisoner infiltrate the dark bowels of the penal colony.

Snake Plissken is picked because he's a tough-as-nails veteran of the Siberian Front in World War III, sentenced for robbing a bank. In exchange for his freedom, Snake is given 23 hours to bring back the President alive - and if he needs a reason not to go AWOL it'll be the two lethal injections implanted in the arteries in his neck, set to go off if he doesn't return home in time...

Kurt Russell equips himself perfectly as the hero with witty one-liners and a devil-may-care attitude, although he has the determination to see the job through - then again, faced with the alternative...

It's sad that two of the cast are no longer with us, namely Lee Van Cleef as Hauk and Donald Pleasance as the President.

Elsewhere in the cast is Isaac Hayes as the evil ganglord of New York known as The Duke. These days, however, he's taken on a role that's just as smooth - the voice of the singing chef in Sky TV's South Park. Harry Dean Stanton has made a living out of roles in bizarre films such as Repo Man and Wild At Heart, but those who are not hitting the big-time these days are Season Hubley and Adrienne Barbeau.

film pic

"Call me Snake..."

The print is watchable but has a few artifacts that aren't particularly noticeable when sat down on the couch. It also loses a point for not being anamorphic when it's standard practice for BMG to release 16:9-enhanced anamorphic versions in Germany, often with plenty of extras.

Thankfully, the film is presented in its original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 which is the only way to watch this film and not the "Original ratio 1.33:1" as quoted on the back of the box which is wrong. The average bitrate is a good 5.97Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 7Mb/s.

After John Carpenter's first film, John Carpenter's Halloween, John Carpenter's Escape From L.A., John Carpenter's Escape From New York and a DVD review of Dark Star.

The sound quality is superb too - mainly for incidental music, not least the classic theme tune, but also atmospheric music some of which is used to pinpoint key moments and a number of directional effects including Snake's fight in the ring and his foray into Broadway with his colleagues. It is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround).

Extras :

Chapters :

The disc is well-chaptered with 27 covering the film, the last being saved to keep the end credits separate. There is no theatrical trailer included though.

Languages & Subtitles :

The film is in English only, with no subtitles. This seems to be the case for all of the current batch of BMG releases.

Background Information :

Misleadingly, there are sections labelled Special Effects, Making The Film and The Edit, which make you think we'll be introduced to pieces of footage on how the film was put together, instead of the handfuls of pages of brief information that we're given instead.

Menu :

The menu mirrors the computer system at the film's opening when it explains the situation in New York, with computer-like clicks and bleeps and some subtle animation.

For some reason, there's no "Play Movie" option. If you've already been viewing part of the film and have come back to the main menu, "Return To Movie" will take you back, but to start the film from scratch, you'll either need to select the first scene yourself, or reboot the DVD altogether since it will begin after the copyright info has been displayed.

film pic

Women with guns. Dangerous.

Overall, this is a great film but the lack of an anamorphic transfer is shame, as is the fact there are so few extras and it faces strong competition from the NTSC Special Edition Laserdisc which contains an interview with John Carpenter as well as a commentary track. 

FILM	 		: ***½
PICTURE QUALITY 	: ***
SOUND QUALITY		: *****
EXTRAS			: *
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ***

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

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