Escape from New York (1981)
Escape from New York is set in a future 1997, during a time when, after the crime rate has skyrocketed out of control, the island of Manhattan has been turned into an ultra-maximum security prison where the worst of the worst violent criminals are put to live in a state of walled-in anarchy. A potential global crisis emerges when Air Force One is hijacked, forcing the President’s (Pleasance) escape pod to crash land on the island, where he is immediately taken and held hostage by the criminals there, led by the vicious warlord, The Duke (Hayes). As they will kill the President if any cop sets foot on the premises, the government recruits eye patch-wearing Snake Plissken (Russell), a former military hero turned criminal (who felt betrayed by his country) who has been recently sentenced to the island, in exchange for not only his freedom, but, due to a bomb implanted inside him set to detonate in mere hours, his life. Plissken has less than 24 hours to get the President out alive so that he can get some critical information delivered in time for an important political conference that might save the planet from a dark destiny.
John Carpenter co-writes and directs (and composes the music for) this cult action classic, one of his best-known and best-loved films. It’s a large-scale film shot for a relatively small budget ($7 million), which would be the largest budget in his career to that point, but still under what a futuristic action-adventure might need. This would leave Carpenter with having to make do with whatever resources were at his disposal to bring his futuristic vision to life. Carpenter, working with screenwriter Nick Castle, keeps the tone ominous and the environs stylishly dystopian, but the keeps the repartee flowing with a modicum of wit, maintaining the film’s entertainment value, even within some of the moments of expository dialogue. As the events of the film are all set on the same day, Carpenter’s film benefits from being set in the sleek look of the night, which adds to the nightmarish quality of a Manhattan run amok. The night scenes also keep the authenticity of the picture, as most of it has been shot in parts of East St. Louis, because of its rundown areas, some which had suffered from a recent fire (with trashed and abandoned vehicles and lots of litter), and the emptiness within parts of its downtown area that made shooting there easier.
Carpenter takes a chance on Kurt Russell for the actor’s first foray at playing an action hero. Prior to this film, Kurt Russell had mostly been known for comedies and live-action Disney flicks, so this was definitely a departure for the already-established actor. Carpenter had been impressed with Russell in their first collaboration, the 1979 TV biopic Elvis, and used him again in several other of his best films, The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China, further cementing Russell’s role as a macho movie hero. Russell claims Escape from New York to be his favorite of all his movies, and he had much input into his character, deciding the channel his inner Clint Eastwood (who made several films opposite Lee Van Cleef), and even came up with the idea of giving Plissken an eye patch. Given how effective Russell is, it’s amazing to think how different the film would be had the studio prevailed in nixing his casting for what they felt was a more macho, well-known actor, a la Charles Bronson (deemed too old) or Tommy Lee Jones. Russell is surrounded by a high-quality cast of supporting actors, such as Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasance, soul singer Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, and Carpenter’s then-wife, Adrienne Barbeau.
Even with its wide scope on a modest budget, the film was to be even wider, with an opening heist at the U.S. Federal Reserve sequence that had been filmed featuring Snake getting captured, but test audiences didn’t care for its length and questioned its need to be in the film at all. It was nixed for confusing the audience and would keep Snake Plisskin’s persona a bit more mysterious, which works better for the story overall, but it is included as a deleted scene for versions of the home video special editions later. In its stead were the opening narration and written prologue that explained the setting for the events to come, as the test audiences grew bored without having a vested interest in the set-up.
The inspiration for Escape from New York came from John Carpenter’s visit to New York in the early 1970s, which he would witness some of the most rundown and seedy of areas. He would begin writing a draft of an idea for a screenplay in the mid-1970s, a cynical by-product of the disillusionment in the government and the president after Watergate, but due to its expense and not quite having the clout to see it come to life at that point, he shelved it. While working on a screenplay for The Philadelphia Experiment for Avco Embassy Pictures, he would encounter difficulty completing it, but Avco had been willing to greenlight his dormant script for Escape from New York instead. As it was a rough draft, Carpenter enlisted the services of his good friend Nick Castle, also a filmmaker, to come help with the rewrite to get it up to snuff.
As with other Carpenter-penned works, the underlying commentary on the borough of Manhattan, where business, commerce, and Wall Street collide, being run by bloodthirsty criminals, falls in line with such films as They Live on suggesting that the country is in danger of being taken over by the yuppie elements. The President is held hostage to the realm of corporate interests, who make him bow in submission to their demands. “Snake” recalls the United States’ flag (the Gadsden Flag), featuring the image of a rattlesnake and emblazoned with the motto, “Don’t Tread on Me”, often used as a symbol of Americans who disagree with the government. Snake is the embodiment of John Carpenter himself, a man who wants to believe in the country and its government, but who have been let down by the greed and corruption of the power that currently occupies the leadership positions. There was a time he was willing to fight for, and willing to die for, the ideals the country once represented, but the country has begun its ascent into fascism, and Snake can only believe in himself as one of the sole remaining carriers of those ideals.
Political subtext notwithstanding, what viewers love about the film, and pretty much any Carpenter flick, is its inherent b-movie sensibility. Interestingly, Escape from New York spawned many more b-movies from its cult success than it borrowed from, and remains one of the most influential films in the ‘antihero’ subgenre of action flicks. 2004’s District 13, 2012’s Lockout, and 2014’s The Purge: Anarchy could be seen as similar premises carried out within the context of another sci-fi universe. Of course, the entire “Metal Gear Solid ” line of video games is seen as a major homage, including its eye patch-wearing lead character of Solid Snake.
Escape from New York would end up being a successful film, earning roughly $25 million in its box office run, and propelled by mostly favorable reviews. Although a success, a sequel would not come about until fifteen years later with Escape from L.A., reuniting Russell with Carpenter, but critics roasted it, and it ended up not making much more than the first film despite a much higher budget. Because of a perceived lack of interest, the proposed third and fourth film in the Plissken trilogy, Escape from Earth and Escape from Mars would be scrapped. Carpenter ended up retooling the Escape from Mars storyline into a new film that would end up released in 2001 as Ghosts of Mars. Over the years, there have been several attempts to remake the film, including efforts that would star the likes of Gerard Butler, Jeremy Renner, Josh Brolin, or Tom Hardy as Snake Plissken, and Leigh Whannel has talked about a reboot in 2019, but all have ended up in development hell that not even Snake Plissken could rescue them out from.
Qwipster’s rating: A-
MPAA Rated: R for strong violence, brief nudity, and some language
Running Time: 99 min.
Cast: Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Harry Dean Stanton, Isaac Hayes, Donald Pleasance, Ernest Borgnine, Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins
Cameo: John Carpenter, Jamie Lee Curtis (voice)
Director: John Carpenter
Screenplay: John Carpenter, Nick Castle