Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)

Directed by Jean-François Richet. Starring Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Maria Bello, Drea de Matteo, John Leguizamo, Gabriel Byrne, Brian Dennehy, Ja Rule, Aisha Hinds, Matt Craven, Dorian Harewood, Kim Coates. [R]

Remake of the John Carpenter B-movie thriller from 1976 twists the basic setup for its own purposes, which are tighter and more formulaic—instead of a crazed local gang assaulting a sparsely-manned police station, it’s a crew of corrupt undercover cops wanting to silence a locked-up criminal (Fishburne) who could testify against them about their involvement in criminal activities. Hawke is established as a burned-out officer riding the desk (and needing the sort of redemption that high-stakes peril encourages), Fishburne just has to be equally cool and threatening, and the bad guys, led by Byrne, aren’t developed at all. Professionally-made action picture only breaks from the cycle for periodic comic relief and broad stroke character tics; it does its job without ever fully involving the viewer, and the camerawork tries to be clever without much luck (it doesn’t help that the rapid-fire editing during the action scenes does little besides disorient). Contains one surprise—the abrupt killing-off of one of the major characters—but it’s not enough to make the pic linger in the memory as anything more than an adequate violent and profane programmer. Richet’s American directorial debut.

60/100