Assault On Precinct 13 is less of a remake of John Carpenter's balls out, guerrilla action treatise and more of a branch off into timeless, near western archetypes, as well as the good old siege thriller format. It's also one of the meanest, grittiest cop films of the last few decades, deserving a higher rung on the ladder of adoration than it has so far ascended to. Dark, merciless and full of yuletide gallows humour, it's a searing blast of gunfire and snowbound pulp starring a roster of fired up talent, starting with an intense Ethan Hawke and an unpredictable, predatory Laurence Fishburne. Fishburne is Marion Bishop, a legendary criminal kingpin wrapped tight in police custody and shipped off to a remote precinct on New Years eve with a busload of fellow prisoner transports. The station is run by a few relaxed cops, all preparing to punch that clock and get the New Year's festivities underway. Unfortunately, a gang of corrupt detectives have other ideas, descending upon the ill guarded outpost with the fury and firepower of animals set loose, determined to murder everyone inside and level the place to the ground in order to cover up their actions. Hawke is the veteran cop with a dodgy undercover past, blessed with the grit and gristle necessary to rally the troupes and self preserve til the morning light. Drea De Matteo, who's awesome and welcome in anything, is a tough female sergeant, Maria Bello the sharp police psychiatrist caught in the middle, Brian Dennehy the salty old dog, and a laundry list of rabid felons who pitch in to save their own asses, including Ja Rule, Aisha Hinds, Currie Graham and a wired up John Leguizamo. Together they all make a veritable wild bunch to hold down the fort, but the forces they're up against are tactical and terrifying. The opposition is headed up by a dangerously quiet Gabriel Byrne as deeply a corrupt Police Captain, doing a coiled viper rendition of a Christopher Walken villain, his work one of the strongest aspects of the film. Watch for Matt Craven and Kim Coates in brief cameos as well. The action is a ballistic blitzkrieg of firefights, standoffs and ditch efforts, scarcely giving the audience time to breathe, let alone tally up the casualties, of which there are many. This ain't no cakewalk, in terms of action films. It's down, dirty and has no time for quips, smart mouths or villains that monologue. Everyone involved in a caged animal prepared to go to extremes at the drop of a hat in order to achieve their goals, with kneejerk reactions and off the cuff violence that feels real, and cuts deep. If you are serious about your action films, and enjoy ruthless, non patronizing narratives that get as cold as the snow drifts surrounding the precinct and as casually indifferent as the bullets that ventilate it, this is your ticket.

In the prologue we see an undercover police operation go badly wrong; Sgt Jake Roenick is wounded and the two other members of his team are killed. Cut forward eight months and he has a desk job in the titular Precinct 13; it is New Year's Eve and the station is due to close the next day. The only other people in the station are Officer Jasper O'Shea, a veteran on the verge of retirement; Iris Ferry, the station secretary, and Dr Alex Sabian, the psychiatrist treating Roenick. It should be a quiet night but then a prisoner transport is forced to stop there due to the snowy conditions. One of the prisoners is Marion Bishop, a crime lord who has recently fallen out with the corrupt cops he was working with… now they want him dead before he can make a statement implicating them; they also intend to kill anybody who may know of the connection. When they try to break into the station the police assume they are Bishop's men trying to break him out but when Roenick learns the truth he must trust the criminals in his cells to help defend the station.Since I've yet to see the original film I can't say how this compares but as its own piece of entertainment I found it to be pretty good. There is plenty of action from start to finish and a good sense of tension. Usually in these sort of films it is easy to guess who is certain to survive so it came as a real shock when one of these was killed; others were somewhat less surprising. Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne are solid as protagonists Roenick and Bishop and Gabriel Byrne is impressive, if somewhat underused, as corrupt cop Captain Duvall. The rest of the cast are good too; notably Drea de Matteo, Maria Bello and Brian Dennehy. The characters are mostly good although some of the criminals are a bit too cliché. The winter setting aging to the atmosphere as the pure white snow is juxtaposed with the bloody violence. Overall this is a solid action movie; worth seeing if you enjoy the genre.

It was just an accident that I chose two Ethan Hawke movies in the same night. This had to be before he was chopped up in Sinister.Besides Hawke, we have Lawrence Fishburne, Drea de Matteo, Mario Bello, John Leguizamo, Brian Dennehy, and Ja Rule. There has to be someone in that mix that makes the film worth watching for you.Precinct 13 has a skeleton crew on duty New Years Eve because it is scheduled to close. A storm forces a police bus carrying a criminal named Bishop (Laurence Fishburne), Beck (John Leguizamo), a girl(Aisha Hinds) and Smiley (Ja Rule) to dump them off.Naturally, Bishop's men will try to break him out and we are witness to some real action. Only it isn't Bishop's men coming after him, and things really get dicey.

Assault on Precinct 13, which is the remake of John Carpenter's 1976 version of the same name is an entertaining action film with credible performances, cool action scenes, a nice story, and just gives you a fun time. It's not going to win any awards, but this is how you make a "B" film. I haven't seen the original so I can't compare, but this movie stands well on it's own.This film is about a cop named Jake and a few others who are about to shut down their station for good on New Year's, but when a gang of violent prisoners including a guy named Bishop arrive, they are attacked by an outside gang and these prisoners and cops must gang up together in order to survive the night.The acting is nothing special, but it's nothing bad either. Each actor gives a solid, credible performance. Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne are two respected actors and I liked them in these roles often squaring off against each other.Overall, this is a solid action film. For a mid-January release, this movie is quite good. I don't know if fans of the original will like this, but action junkies will totally dig it. It's a good old-fashioned shoot-em-up. I rate this film 8/10.