CinemaClown Painting a dismal, desolate & decaying portrait of New York City from mere scraps of filmmaking materials, John Carpenter's Escape from New York brings its brilliantly imagined dystopian future to cinematic life in a smooth & efficient manner, and is also notable for creating one of the coolest badass characters to grace the film screen.Set in the then near-future of 1997, Escape from New York shows Manhattan Island as a maximum security prison in the crime-infested United States. The plot follows Snake Plissken, an ex-soldier & convicted felon who's asked to rescue the US President & his precious cargo from the deserted land within 24 hours in exchange for full amnesty.Co-written & directed by John Carpenter (best known for Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween & The Thing), it's amazing just how authentic the dystopian environment looks despite being filmed on a shoestring budget. The premise follows a simple A to B route but it's the little details & characters that make the whole film enriching on different levels.Set pieces are wonderfully detailed. Cinematography encapsulates the picture with a dark & bleak atmosphere and manoeuvres the camera in a controlled fashion. Editing keeps the plot moving at all times although there were a couple of moments that felt necessary to the narrative. And lastly, Carpenter contributes with a fitting score that ranks amongst his finest compositions.Coming to the performances, Escape from New York packs a formidable cast in Kurt Russell & Lee Van Cleef, with Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton & others in supporting roles. Exuding a high level of badassery & coolness, Russell delivers a fantastic performance as Snake Plissken and it remains one of his most memorable roles to date. Van Cleef isn't far behind & plays his part with panache.On an overall scale, Escape from New York is a thoroughly captivating, consistently entertaining & sufficiently satisfying effort from John Carpenter and is another quality addition to his filmography. Oozing with a raw style, not devoid of substance & benefiting from Kurt Russell's strong input, it's an expertly crafted & skilfully directed dystopian sci-fi actioner that has aged well over the years, and is absolutely worthy of your time & money.

Red-Barracuda This early 80's bit of dystopian sci-fi set in a future America which is now a fascist state has gone on to garner a cult reputation. Set in the future of 1997, Manhattan Island is now a high security prison where the criminal dregs of society are contained. When the president's aeroplane crashes in the middle of this city prison and captured by the resident criminals, a mercenary called Snake Plissken is sent in on a do-or-die mission to retrieve him within twenty-four hours.Escape From New York is another in the long line of strong movies director John Carpenter made in his 70's-80's heyday. After a couple of big horror hits under his belt he returned to the more action-oriented style of his earlier Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), except in this case adding a science-fiction premise to add considerable colour. To this end, the film features dark dilapidated New York settings for the action to take place and these, added to the nice panoramic views of the darkened city add considerable atmosphere. As does Carpenter's main theme music which is amongst the very best be ever composed and given the high calibre of his original soundtrack music, that's saying quite a lot. The film also benefits from a cast of b-movie legends, we have Donald Pleasence as an improbable President of the United States, Isaac Hayes is a blaxploitation styled Duke of New York, Kurt Russell as the iconic eye-patch sporting anti-hero, Adrienne Barbeau appears throughout in an eye-popping low cut tight red outfit, Ernest Borgnine is a comic-relief cabbie, Lee Van Cleef is a hard-bitten police chief and Harry Dean Stanton pitches up as a shifty character called Brain. The film isn't always fully exciting stuff it has to be admitted and it sometimes promises more than it delivers but the set-up, settings and cast are very good, while there are some memorable scenes such as the death match and mine-infested bridge to keep the pace up. Ultimately, this is a very solid bit of early 80's sci-fi action, with enough distinctive elements to ensure its ongoing cult appeal.

socialjusticeexpress Ah, older movies. There should be an age restriction for reviews on IMDb. You can tell who the young people are by the idiotic things they write about older movies. For some reason, young people just don't understand what FICTION means. Hence, the numerous one-star reviews in which the premise of Escape from New York is reviewed as opposed to the film itself. God love the youth, because I sure don't!Escape from New York is a great example of stretching a budget as far as it will go. For its time, it had a much bigger budget look to it. That explains why it inspired so many artists, including William Gibson. As much as I love Blade Runner, Escape from New York, essentially, beat Blade Runner to the punch with respect to the dark look that Blade Runner would eventually get credit for inspiring.The premise, that New York City would be turned into a giant prison, is actually not that absurd, though, for a work of fiction, that shouldn't even matter. In 1981, New York City was a giant toilet. It makes perfect sense that a totalitarian, post WWIII government might send all its criminals there to, pardon the pun, duke it out.Several of the kiddies here have complained about the script. They are not taking into account that all the Bibles of scriptwriting we know of today (Story, Save the Cat, etc.) were not published until well after this film was made. Regardless, if you actually take the story apart, you'll see it meets all the demands of traditional, storytelling structure.So you kids really have nothing to complain about, other than the fact that your poor generation has been deprived of the joys of REAL fiction. Stop looking for reality in fiction and stop using social media to make your reality a fiction!End of lecture. Now get off my lawn!

Thomas Drufke Snake Plissken is known as one of the most iconic sci-fi characters in film history, but why? Kurt Russell is a fine actor in just about everything he does, but Escape From New York never gives him anything to do besides hold a gun which he uses maybe once the entire film? It's safe to say I wasn't impressed with this film.Manhattan is now a security prison for criminals of all variety and after the President crash lands in the middle of the city, Plissken is hired to rescue him. Apparently Plissken is like the boogeyman for these Manhattan criminals, since they all know who he is but didn't seem to know he actually existed or where he's been. The weirdest part, however, is we never get to see him to anything of value. Even in criminals past references, they never mentioned anything specifically which would warrant him a spot to save the President.It's one thing if the film embraces its silliness and makes all of the dialogue, action, and performances cheesy, but they don't. The tone is never truly set. On one hand, you have Plissken taking on dozens of criminals who look like they are wearing Mad Max cosplay, but then you have the issue of the President's life being on the line. Those are two opposing tones butting heads, and you never get a grasp on the type of film John Carpenter wants to make. I think Carpenter is a masterful director, but Escape From New York felt kind of like a cheap side project for him. Though, I will say Carpenter's original score made for this film is brilliant.I think a lot of my frustration comes from the fact that this film was made close to 40 years ago, and therefore, there's plenty of dated qualities to it. CGI was young in 1981, and it shows. That and the green screen effects were difficult to watch. Of course, these aren't necessarily the film's fault, but sometimes the reach shouldn't exceed the grasp by that much of a margin. It's not the fault of the film, but I've seen plenty that are better since. Donald Pleasance doesn't get much to do, and neither does anybody in a supporting role. And most of all, I just didn't care for any of the characters or the story they were in.+Great score-Why is Plissken so revered?-Dated4.2/10