A bought a couple of new DVDs this week, including a box with Spy Game, Gangs of New York and Assault On Precinct 13. I saw the latter one this weekend, it’s a loose remake of a same-name movie from 1976.
At the start of this action thriller we see the main character, Jake Roenick, during an undercover action. As his cover is blown and the operation goes badly wrong, two of his partners are killed. The movie then flashes forward to New Year’s Eve 2004. We can see that the fatal shooting had a traumatic impact on Roenick, who is now working behind a desk and blaming himself for the death of his partners.
It’s just a couple of hours before New Year and few officers are on duty in Detroit’s oldest police station, Precinct 13, which is about to close forever. As the officers and their secretary are getting ready to celebrate they suddenly get informed that a prison transport with four criminals is heading their way because the bus driver can’t get them anywhere also because of a raging snowstorm and bad road conditions. One of these criminals is the infamous mobster Marion Bishop.
The (rather small) New Year’s party begins but gets abruptly interrupted by gunfire. The precinct is under assault. The officers first assume it’s the mob who’s trying to break out Bishop but it turns out that this is not the case. As the officers unravel the truth it becomes clear that they will have to work together with the arrested criminals if they want to survive this night.
I didn’t really know what to expect from this movie but it was a lot of fun. Lots of action, pretty good acting, two pretty girls and some twists make this a pretty good movie. One of the characters I really liked was Laurence Fishburne’s Bishop, really twisted evil and very well acted. Assault on Precinct 13 is one of the better action movies I’ve seen this year, I give it a 8/10.
The DVD also has some bonus features like some info on the weapons they used, a behind the scenes tour of the Precinct 13 building, the attack plan, the assault team, commentaries and some deleted scenes. The deleted scenes weren’t really worth checking out, it’s probably best that they were deleted.