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Assault on Precinct 13
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Rated: R- Strong Violence and Language Throughout and Some Drug Content
                                                                              May 29, 2005

      John Carpenter’s original “Assault on Precinct 13” was not only suspenseful, it was scary.  Carpenter masterfully set up how everyone got trapped into the abandoned Precinct building, and how a group of hateful gang members wanted nothing but blood.
      This new one is bigger, louder, more explosive, and filled with much more language than that 1976 version.  I didn’t like it.
      Ethan Hawke is Jake Roenick, a cop who was undercover when his entire crew was killed by thugs.  He, himself, was wounded also and is now back to work – a milder type of police work.  On New Year’s Eve he, along with a secretary and another cop, is set to watch over the old Precinct 13 building.  The precinct is being relocated, and a few people are needed to take care of last minute calls and redirections.
      A violent snow storm leaves Jake’s psychologist (Maria Bello), two cops from another city, a host of criminals, and Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne) stuck inside the buidling as well.  Bishop is an almost-famous “cop killer” that is behind bars because he, well, killed some cops.  Jake would rather kill him than so much as look at him.
      Then Gabriel Byrne is added to the picture as Jasper O’Shea, one of many, many crooked cops who received money illegally through Bishop.  Now that all these unfortunate people are stuck inside the abandoned precinct, they are sitting ducks against nearly the entire police force, which is desperate for their death.  O’Shea and the others want them dead because it would eliminate the threat of them being caught.
      “Assault on Precinct 13” is oozing with horrendous plotting and reasoning, which is quite an error considering the film it is based on reached greatness because of the exact opposite.  Writer James DeMonaco fails to bring any sense of tension or suspense because everyone is so easily hated.  If you hate every character, then you want no one to win the fight.  If you want no one to win the fight, then you aren’t pulling for any one side.  If you aren’t pulling for any one side, then there is no suspense.  You must have two sides of a single spectrum to achieve it, and this only has one.
      Not only that, “Assault” has a few physical errors that were just plain ignorant to miss on the part of the filmmakers.  In a wide shot of the building, we seem to be in some vast, deserted plain.  Later, the characters find themselves in a forest merely feet away.  In a scene where they are in a sewage tunnel, there are lights every few yards.  I had no idea sewage tunnels were equipped with lights...you know, just in case someone happened to be walking through it.  Not to mention, would as many cops as are featured here be this crooked?
      “Assault on Precinct 13” even fails on the thrills, which are canceled out by stupidity.  The “mind-boggling” twists and turns aren’t convincing.  The explosions are ridiculous.  And the gunshots never stop.  This is one big mess.  **