"Call me Snake," Kurt Russell utters to legendary Spaghetti Western actor Lee Van Cleef, as the latter attempts to make a deal with Kurt Russell's character, Lt. Snake Plissken, a decorated war hero-turned-anarchist. Van Cleef's character, another former war hero named Bob Hauk, tells Plissken that only a few hours earlier the President of the United States (Donald Pleasance) was the victim of a terrorist plane hijacking, forcing the President to abandon the plane in an escape vessel destined to crash land in New York City-now the nation's largest, and most dangerous, federal penitentiary.Hauk tells Plissken that, unless he wants to spend the rest of his life behind bars, he better get his ass in there and save the President. "The name's Plissken!" Kurt Russel utters rebelliously. The rest of the movie is pretty much exactly what you'd want out of a stylized sci-fi action piece set in a year that now, in 2018, is already 20 years in the dust. Kurt Russell delivers a 110% Kurt Russell performance, but plays a much grittier character in relation to Big Trouble in Little China's Jack Burton or even his role in The Thing. Carpenter's soundtrack kicks major ass, riding one long synth motif straight through the movie. Isaac Hayes delivers as The Bad Guy, and Donald Pleasance plays a unique version of the hostage, let alone the President of the United States. What can be said...if you love John Carpenter, you should have already seen this movie! And if you love 80s action gems, pop this baby in and enjoy the ride.

Movie Review: "Escape From New York" (1981)In independent restraints, armed with powerhouse heart-beating screenplay conceived with a lot of foreign inspiration, especially the far east cultures of the rising sun, writers Nick Castle and director John Carpenter blessed with leading man Kurt Russell as beyond-the-law mercenary army-of-one "Snake Plissken" at age 29 going on a mission to save the U.S. American President, whose Air Force One crashed landed in a shut-down island of Manhattan, where Anarchy rules to fighting dystopian proportions.With Larry Franco and late Debra Hill (1950-2005) producing on tight but used beyond imagination production budget lets "Escape From New York" prevail in entertainment factors even against magnus opus productions as "Superman II" (1980) and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (1979) directed by Robert Wise of the same Hollywood period of emerging video-tape industries, outgoing from all conceivable forms of visualizations in sound, music and picture art-works as the home video entertainment market, suddenly on every Major Hollywood Players desk on monday mornings."Escape From New York" directed by John Carpenter, learning as exceeding his filmschooling crafts by starting from the lowest end of micro-budgeting "Dark Star" with Dan O'Bannon (1946-2009) over "Halloween" (1978) starring Jamie Lee Curtis to Carpenter's ultimate masterpiece "The Thing" (1982) also-starring Kurt Russell as Antarctic Scientist in Alien-invading distress in an ultimate summer season with ruling film-makers of a now more fading generation with film classics as "Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan", "Conan, The Babarian", "Blade Runner" and "E.T. the extraterrestrial" directed by Steven Spielberg, who remains in forging new digital frontiers for 2018.At time when nevertheless the old-fashioned as ruthlessness of this face-pacing 95-Minute-editorial by cutter Todd C. Ramsey, utilizing Dean Cundey's ultra-star close-to neo-noir cinematography in devasting honest apocalyptic production design to racing, chasing showdown bridge pursuits ending in cranking metal of solid steel and machine gun bullets in storming, yet coolness ensuring to limbing of having giving everything for nothing to win.© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

Escape From New York (1981) stars Kurt Russel and Lee Van Cleef. It's about a hardened criminal who is sent in to rescue the President after his plane crashes in New York, now a massive prison. I found this movie to be a perfect storm of 80's nostalgia with bad CGI, a gritty color palette, gratuitous violence, and a strong lead action hero. Kurt Russel pulls off a fantastic Snake Plissken, the character becoming an icon for years to come. It's not the best movie ever made, but an enjoyable and fun experience nonetheless. 7/10

A highly entertaining sci-fi action thriller, though a bit dated. It is a Classic in the weakest sense of the term. You cannot put it in the same category as all-time classics like the Terminator, Rambo, or Alien franchises, but it is not far behind. I would put EFNY on the very cusp of being a classic.There are 3 things that make this film great. First, the star of the film is Kurt Russell as the iconic anti-hero "Snake Plissken". Russell really nails the part down as good as any iconic action figure in movie history. He delivers plenty of classic one-liners that moviegoers will quote forever. Second, the musical score by John Carpenter is fantastic. Taking a page from 1978's "Halloween", Carpenter really sets the mood of an apocalyptic NYC overrun by violent criminals. Third, the dark visual city-scape of New York created by Carpenter with abandoned buildings, dumpster fires, and maniacs roaming the streets is very well done.Now this movie is very dated looking, and does not age well. EFNY debuted in 1981, but was made in the late 1970's, and it shows. The special effects are a joke by today's standards. Watching those 70's computers with red and green signals flashing, you feel like you are in a museum. The explosions that take place in the film are laughably fake. Almost like someone lit a firecracker off and a little smoke comes out. Another trademark of this late 70's-early 80's period, is we see a prominence of big American land yacht vehicles such as Cadillac Deville's and Ford LTD's. Somehow, the dated look and primitive special effects actually lend the movie a favor. It wouldn't be the same if we had modern CGI and high def graphics.The secondary characters are mostly forgettable. Donald Pleasance as President is convincing, but is given too little screen time. Isaac Hayes as "The Duke of New York" makes for an interesting foe at first glance, but is given no memorable dialogue. The rest of the cast are used as cannon fodder. This is fine, however, because all we care about is Snake Plissken and his mission. Everyone else is expendable.What holds this movie back is they could have done so much more. By the movie's end you feel like the writers barely scratched the surface on the movie's potential. What could have been. They could have developed the secondary characters more. They could have done a more thorough story on Snake Plissken's background. Instead, the movie rushes to the action and ends rather abruptly. Still, despite its flaws, this is a great sci-fi action flick to watch on a night at home.