Movie Review: Assault On Precinct 13 (2005)

A police-under-siege action thriller, Assault On Precinct 13 tries to find some balance between a hail of bullets and character interaction. But by dumping logic into the Detroit snow, the film achieves guff rather than grit.

Undercover detective Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke) leads his small team into a botched drug sting operation, resulting in the loss of two officers. Eight months later, Roenick is still traumatized, killing time at a desk job and making no progress with psychiatrist Alex Sabian (Maria Bello). It's New Year's Eve, Detroit is smothered by a snow storm, and Roenick, secretary Drea de Matteo (Iris Ferry) and veteran Sergeant Jasper O'Shea (Brian Dennehy) are staffing the otherwise abandoned Precinct 13 for the final time before the station closes for good.

Crime boss Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne) is arrested after killing an undercover police officer, and the snow storm forces his prisoner bus to unexpectedly divert to Precinct 13 for the night. Roenick places the high profile Bishop and a bunch of petty prisoners into the station prison cells, and soon enough Precinct 13 is under armed assault. It's not Bishop's men who are out to free him, but rather rogue cops under the leadership of Captain Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne) who need to silence Bishop and all witnesses before he reveals the depth of corruption in the police ranks. With no help in sight, Roenick has to hunker down for the night and organize a defence, which forces him into an uneasy alliance with Bishop.

A remake of the 1976 John Carpenter film of the same name, Assault On Precinct 13 features no shortage of gruesome action. Bullets to the brain and icicles in the eye are just some of the treats director Jean-François Richet throws at the screen for full splatter effect. On the more cerebral level, there is an honest attempt to give Roenick a backstory, but the narrative is not well served by the very tired premise of the hero hiding in a bottle to escape a bad episode in his life.

The third and final attempt to distinguish the film is the complex relationship between Roenick the honest cop and Bishop the master crime lord, two men from opposite sides of the law forced to work together against a common enemy for just one night. Thanks to fine performances from Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne, the dynamic between the reluctant protector and the supremely confidant target brings a trace of depth to an otherwise rudimentary film.

But any good intentions to deliver a quality thriller are severely undermined by the stupid bad guys syndrome, which ultimately obliterates any promise held by the film. Gabriel Byrne as lead villain Marcus Duvall fails miserably in a lame attempt to convey evil intent. Meanwhile his army of heavily armed and fully equipped murderous men are somehow outsmarted in every confrontation by Roenick and his ragtag group made up of prisoners, one beat cop and a couple of civilians.

There is no escaping the sense that the assault could have been over in about three and half minutes had Duvall brought his full force to bear, as any smart antagonist aiming to murder a group of people in cold blood would have done. Matters are made much worse when the equivalent of a mini-war rages for hours at Precinct 13, and no external force responds to all the gun fire. Detroit may be bad; it's not this lawless, yet.

Inside the besieged building Maria Bello gets a couple of good scenes but then dissolves into victimhood when the shooting starts, while Iris Ferry's take on secretary Drea as an oversexed doll seems to be entirely incongruous. The other prisoners offer roles for John Leguizamo and rapper Ja Rule.

Assault On Precinct 13 ends at daybreak with combatants pursuing each other in a forest shrouded by fog. They can't see each other, and neither can anyone see much point in this unnecessary remake.

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The Movies of Jonah Hill

All movies starring Jonah Hill and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)

Click (2006)

Accepted (2006)

Knocked Up (2007)

Evan Almighty (2007)

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

Moneyball (2011)

Django Unchained (2012)

The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013)

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

War Dogs (2016)

Don't Look Up (2021)

You People (2023)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

The Movies Of Jennifer Garner

All movies starring Jennifer Garner and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Pearl Harbor (2001)

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

13 Going On 30 (2004)

Catch And Release (2006)

The Kingdom (2007)

Juno (2007)

Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past (2009)

Valentine's Day (2010)

Butter (2011)

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

Draft Day (2014)

Men, Women, And Children (2014)

Danny Collins (2015)

Love, Simon (2018)

Peppermint (2018)

The Adam Project (2022)

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The Movies Of Woody Strode

All movies starring Woody Strode and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Woody Strode (1941, uncredited)

The Ten Commandments (1956)

The Buccaneer (1958)

The Last Voyage (1960)

Spartacus (1960)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

The Professionals (1966)

Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)

Boot Hill (1969)

The Quick And The Dead (1995)

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Movie Review: The Graduate (1967)

A drama and romance about generational rifts, The Graduate is a sharp examination of youth bumping up against the rules of their parents.

Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) has returned home to Los Angeles after finishing his college degree. A top student, Benjamin does not know what he wants to do in life, and his parents (William Daniels and Elizabeth Wilson) are no help. Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) is the bored, alcoholic wife of the business partner of Benjamin's father, and she relentlessly pursues and seduces Benjamin. They start and sustain a prolonged affair behind the back of Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton). While the sex is great, Mrs. Robinson is not too interested in ever actually talking to Benjamin.

The Robinsons' daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) is a Berkeley student, and Benjamin's parents and Mr. Robinson believe she is a perfect fit for him. But Mrs. Robinson wants to keep Benjamin for herself, and warns him away from getting close to her daughter. Benjamin is initially happy to oblige, but when he reconnects with Elaine, a spark ignites. Benjamin finds his life getting exceedingly complicated as he gets caught between loving one woman while being held emotionally hostage by her mother.

Directed by Mike Nichols and set to the magical tunes of Simon and Garfunkel, The Graduate defines an era. The screenplay by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry (adapting the Charles Webb novel) perfectly captures the angst shrouding the journey from youth to adult, and made all the more hazardous in a time of societal turmoil. Members of the greatest generation are at their economic and sexual peak, and the baby boomers are tentatively seeking their way in a changing world and challenging rules they don't respect. The conflict is filled with transformational moments.

The genius of The Graduate is in capturing a generational shift through the simple story of Benjamin's search for a purpose. The narrative is always intimate, personal and singularly concentrated on one man. But the broader seismic shift of the next generation bedazzled by the fantasy of their elders while seeking to break free is the silent yet dominant backdrop to Benjamin's post-graduate summer. The first half of the film consists of none too subtle coercion and seduction, the men in his life throwing thoughtless career advice his way, sometimes literally reduced to one word ("Plastics!"), while his dad parades him in a scuba diving suit supposed to represent scientific achievement but only serving to heighten Ben's sense of isolation.

Mrs. Robinson is more persistent and more successful in her attempts to lure Benjamin into her bed. With Anne Bancroft enjoying the role of her life, Mrs. Robinson expertly snags Benjamin like a prized fish and reels him in with a combination of hints, seduction, flattery, and ultimately insults that demand his physical response. And once she lands her trophy, Mrs. Robinson will not let go. Benjamin represents her fountain of youth, a reason for her to believe she is still relevant, the older generation emotionally and physically dominating the upstarts, a strategy that works fine as long as the youth keep their mouth shut.

Once Benjamin demands they start talking he is not happy with what he hears, her possessiveness sowing doubts in his mind and triggering an encounter with Elaine that will finally start to define a purpose. Still under Mrs. Robinson's influence Benjamin is initially aloof and cruel with Elaine, but her calm frailty wins him over, and soon he learns what true love can offer his life. Untangling himself from Mrs. Robinson's clutches will not be easy, but it is never easy for any generation to emerge from the shadows, cast off the burden of its elders, and aim for new horizons.

Few films are as closely associated with their soundtracks as The Graduate. The songs include Mrs. Robinson, The Sound Of Silence and Scarborough Fair, with Paul Simon's fragile yet intense singing and the soulful melodies adding immeasurably to the film's impact. Nichols directs with audacity, using jump cuts, playing with focus and perspective and sprinkling touches of humour to portray the tentative first steps of a young man into adulthood. Benjamin's initial foray into the surreptitious world of booking upscale hotel rooms for sexual encounters, under the suspicious gaze of the stern desk clerk, is turned into a deliciously awkward misadventure.

In his first major screen role, Dustin Hoffman shows remarkable talent and uncommon maturity, holding the film together with a mixture of unease, drift, and finally intent. The film launched his stellar career and rewarded him with his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Bancroft (Best Actress) and Ross (Best Supporting Actress) were also nominated, as was the film, the script and the cinematography. Nichols won the Oscar for Best Director.

The Graduate crosses the stage with confidence, passion and humour, leaving behind a lasting legacy.

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