Assault on Precinct 13 - Pretty entertaining remake

The original 1970s 'Assault on Precinct 13' was hailed as a 'classic' John Carpenter film and is still held up as an example of tense, action film-making from the era.  I didn't think that much of it.  I've only seen it the once and I thought it was okay.  I remember the basic story - a police station comes under siege from shady and overpowering external forces and the cops and robbers trapped inside must band together in order to survive.  About the only thing I can remember was that everyone made a really big thing about the guns having 'silencers' on them.  Maybe it was because I was watching it in the eighties and silencers were common by then - I don't know.

Anyway, from what I can remember, the 2005 remake follows the premise pretty well.  Ethan Hawke is a cop who was injured in the line of duty and now spends his days running the sleepy Precinct 13.  However, one New Year's Eve, his team of tired old coppers get more than they bargained for when an infamous criminal played by Laurence Fishburne arrives in a prison bus that has been diverted there due to poor weather.  Now, everyone finds themselves under fire from rogue coppers (with more than just silencers!).

I've mentioned the two main characters, Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne (who probably shines more than his 'heroic' opposite!).  Naturally, they're given the bulk of the screen time and a certain degree of character development, but there are actually quite a few others there as well.  Some - semi - familiar faces who are also stuck in the building while head crooked cop Gabriel Byrne has his men lay waste to the building in order to get his man are Brian Dennehy, Maria Bello and John Leguizamo to name the main ones.  Because there are so many cops/crims alongside the principal cast members you could be forgiven for thinking that they're only there to be wiped out and, you're - sort of - be right.  Many get what's coming to them (and some who definitely don't deserve what they get!), but they all feel like real characters rather than just 'filler' cast members there only to die.  I'm not saying that a few of them don't descend into complete stereotypes at one stage or another, but they're all reasonable enough to be at least partially memorable.

There's a fair bit of gore and strong language contained in this film and it deserves its 'mature' rating as it certainly doesn't pull any punches.  So you need to be okay with plenty of the red stuff flying out of the (numerous!) headshots that seem to crop up here.

Over the years I've watched this film at least four times.  I'm not saying it's the most amazing film ever, but it is just a simple, entertaining action film (that's quite tense and works well as a 'siege movie').  I'm aware that people who loved the original don't really approve of the remake treatment being applied to this (I have my own gripes with enough remakes of my favourite films, too!), but, for someone like me who, for whatever reason, never really 'got' the original, it's actually quite a lot of fun if you're in the mood for something like this.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one