Escape from New York [Blu-ray]
SPOILER FREE REVIEW!
SPOILER FREE REVIEW!
John Carpenter’s Escape from New York - released in 1981 - is set in the then-future of 1997, so it’s almost quite strange to be seeing a ‘dystopian future’ taking place in a period that is now very much in the past, 25 years ago to be precise.
Manhattan has been turned into an island prison, with convicts sent there and left to their own devices. The city, a shadow of its former self, consisting of dilapidated store fronts and abandoned, graffitied high rises; criminals lurking in the shadows and forming their own allegiances, fending for themselves in a far more brutal world than they’d experience in a ‘normal’ prison - yet in a strange juxtaposition is also somewhat relaxed, in that they have created their own societal rules and entertainment. After the President’s plane is hijacked and is sent on a crash course for the city, he ejects - ending up right in the thick of it.
Cue Kurt Russell; playing Snake Plissken, a decorated war hero who has just been sentenced to a lifetime prison sentence in the New York maximum security prison after turning to a life of crime. In return for rescuing the President (and the very important information he has on him), he is offered the opportunity of a full pardon - wiping out his entire US criminal record. A role he reveres as the favourite he has done, Kurt Russell is flawless in his performance, oozing with coolness and wit, and portraying the role with such genuine badassery.
If you’ve ever seen Escape from New York, then you’ll know that it’s an extremely low-lit movie, with many scenes taking place outdoors at night, with very dark environments that purposefully obscure a lot visually. Carpenter’s fantastic use of lighting, whether from the neon displays in Snake’s stealth glider, to the flickering flames all across the city really helps to set the tone, making things feel all the more daunting and dangerous for Snake as he tries to move around the city, and track down the President whilst being very aware that he has a limited time to do so, given that he has been implanted with microscopic explosives that are rigged to blow up at the precise moment that the President’s time-sensitive documents expire.
The characters we meet along the way are interesting, such as Brain (Harry Dean Stanton) and Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau), who join Snake on much of his journey, as well as Cabbie, played by Ernest Borgnine, and it makes you really wonder what each of these people did to get them landed in a place like this. The main antagonist, The Duke, played by Isaac Hayes, is particularly intimidating, along with the cannibalistic Crazies roaming the streets of New York (although we’d have loved to see a bit more of them). There’s a lot of references to Westerns, from everyone stating that they thought Snake was dead (a nod to John Wayne in Big Jake [1971]) to Kurt Russell’s performance being heavily inspired by Clint Eastwood, which adds a consistent theme to the character.
Overall, we really enjoyed Escape from New York and found it to be a good time, with a decent plot, terrific cast and a dramatic 80s-futuristic score that perfectly sets the scene. There’s an impressive use of miniature work, as well as clever choice of location-based filming that combined, make for phenomenally realistic grittiness. The action scenes are quite minimal, but really well done - so we’d have really liked to have seen more. Without delving into spoiler territory (yes - I know it’s a 40+ year old movie so I shouldn’t really be worried about that!), we both loved the ending, with it really cementing our view of Snake Plissken as the ultimate badass. It’s a movie that we adore, and own multiple variants of, from the gorgeous Shout! Factory SteelBook, to the stunning South Korean KimchiDVD release, so we’ll be sure to get some unboxings done for you all very soon!
In the end, we decided to give Escape from New York the Collecting Asylum rating of 9.5/10.
Have you seen Escape from New York? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
