Action buffs will have a fine time with the spray of bullets, shattering glass, and pyrotechnic explosions that makes up the bulk of Assault on Precinct 13. This high-concept thriller is mostly a brutal non-stop kill-fest, and is very happy with itself for being so efficient in both categories.
A decrepit police station on its last night before retirement – New Year’s Eve, no less – plays unexpected home to a gang of criminals who become snowbound in the basement lockup. Another mysterious gang of people who stealthily gather in the blizzard outside want one of the particularly nasty criminals (Laurence Fishburne) dead, and they’ll take the rest of the precinct down too, by golly. The odd lot of characters trapped inside include a burned-out sergeant (Ethan Hawke), a sexpot secretary, an even sexier police psychologist, and various other good guys and bad guys who variously go down in blazes of guts, glory, bullets, and fire. Hawke and Fishburne are opposite sides of the coin: the law, and the bathroom scale. Their need to partner in order to survive the guns outside is the movie’s moral conflict, and both actors chew on Precinct 13’s peeling walls and scuffed floors to drive the point home every chance they get in an industrial section of Detroit for the climactic showdown.
