finally got around to watching Escape from New York (yes, the 80s cult classic) last night. Always meant to watch it, have read about it, seen a few clips here and there but never the whole movie. For those souls hiding under a rock the past 30 years, basically Kurt Russell is Snake Plissken, an ex-military hero who is actually on his way TO the prison (for robbing a bank) when Lee Van Cleef enlists him to save The President, because Air Force One crashed in NYC, now a max-security prison for the entire country.

Some thoughts:

1) do *NOT* watch the ‘extras’ until AFTER the movie! While I already knew mostly what happens (the movie is 30+ years old after all) there were a few spoilers in the featurette (interviews with John Carpenter, Kurt Russell, and others from the movie/writers) that unfortunately did their evil work. Doh!

2) it isn’t a super high-budget movie. But for what it has, it’s not bad. And it has the advantage of depicting NYC as a prison (versus trying to depict a future robot theme park on a budget), so you expect things to be thrashed and on fire, etc.

3) The fight scene with Kurt Russell and the big wrestler guy is lame. I guess it was inevitable they had to have *some* big ‘fight’ in a movie like this – but they should have had some crazy alley battle like the ridiculous one in They Live (also by JC but later) or some square-off between Isaac Hayes (the ‘Duke of New York’ – has a ’70s big-ass Caddy with chandeliers mounted on the hood – I am not making that up) and KR.

4) Harry Dean Stanton is always good, he plays great freaks. Ernest Borgnine (‘Cabbie’) was kind of wasted in his part (who takes cabs in prison? And how has he been driving a cab in NYC for 30 years – did he just decide to stay when they converted it into a prison?)

5) Like the featurette says – Snake Plissken is a great anti-hero, and KR definitely plays up the Clint Eastwood aspect (as he admits). Minimal dialogue, maximum attitude. Would that we could all be Snake Plissken 🙂 But I’d toss the eye-patch – I like having depth perception, myself. Get some scary tattoo or wear goth clothing or something.

6) it’s a bit weird to see SP land his glider on the Twin Towers, given that they aren’t there anymore. And the chase across the bridge to ‘escape’ seems like an awfully small bridge? Foot bridge? Every car/transit conduit into Manhattan I’ve ever seen is at least FOUR LANES? Even the smallest bridges in Seattle are four lanes? Just sayin’.

All in all, an entertaining watch – it’s always interesting for me (having been there first time around) to see how well the ‘tech’ ages in movies like this. Here, they don’t really play that up, save for some computery-looking fonts on some of the signs and computers – and a few terminals that were obviously stolen from a nearby airport for the early part of the movie. SP’s radio is a bit on the big side as you might expect, and the ‘phone’ Lee Van Cleef uses to call him on later almost covers the side of his entire head and neck – now THAT’s a phone! One he could call with *and* use as a TV tray for his dinner while waiting for SP to get back?

candybowl