America filled up with so many criminals, they ended up abandoning Manhatten, and turning it into a massive prison, surrounded by the military. Unfortunately, Air Force One has been kidnapped, with the President (Donald Pleasance) on board, and crashlanded into the heart of the area (as a massive fan of Chris Morris, I found myself thinking “This is the one thing we didn’t want to happen!”). Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a convicted and dangerous criminal, with no respect for anyone, is brought in by Lee Van Cleef’s “Hauk”, as the only man bad and tough enough to go in and get the President out. He has an implant into his neck that will kill him if he doesn’t return with the President in 24 hours, so he can’t take the opportunity to escape, or dilly dally in any way.
Lee van Cleef is one of the better things in the film, but is the main reason, according to the special features on the disc, why Russell decided to talk in the manner of Clint Eastwood for the duration of the film. Unfortunately this was an awful decision, as the void separating the charisma and screen presence of Eastwood and Russell would be more than enough to keep all the prisoners on this film separated from society. Mind you, the “prisoners” on this film are about as scary as a bunch of slightly unruly school kids that won’t keep quiet in a substitute teacher’s lesson. I can only assume the crime rate’s increased so much because there is now a fixed 10-year term for littering or not renewing your car tax.
A frankly bizarre cast includes Harry Dean Stanton as some kind of wet fish toadying around after whoever he thinks might be most likely to come out on top, Isaac Hayes as the “Duke”, the leader of the prison, and Ernest Borgnine as an incredibly friendly and enthusiastic cab driver. They all ham it up massively, which is reasonably fun, for a while. The pacing of the film, however, is so slow, that enthusiasm has long ceased to fire by the final act. A burnt out area in Illinois gave Carpenter an ideal post-apocalyptic landscape in which to film, and I have to say the look of the locations is great, and the main pull of the film, especially considering they were working on such a tiny budget. Unfortunately the plot is terrible, the acting is worse, and the whole thing takes itself far too seriously.
I appreciate this film is important, in that it was probably quite unlike anything that was around at the time. However, it came before a load of great 80s action films. The 80s wasn’t a great era for many things, but action movies did pretty well out of the whole thing. Unfortunately, they immediately dated this film beyond recognition. It’s a B-movie, and probably quite a good one if taken on that level, but it’s no classic film.
Biffer on Film 