- In my mind, it's a toss-up between Assault on Precinct 13 and Dirty Harry for the most exaggerated depiction of urban crime ever to make it on film. On one hand, Dirty Harry's villainous "Scorpio" kidnaps an entire busload of children after raping and killing a teenager. On the other hand, Assault on Precinct 13 features the brutal murder of a young girl at an ice cream truck in one of the most shamelessly exploitative scenes I can recall ever seeing in a mainstream movie. Additionally, the latter features about a hundred anonymous gang members who crawl through the windows and doors like cockroaches, only to get blown to hell. Yeah, now that I'm keeping score, maybe Assault on Precinct 13 wins.
- That's not to suggest, however, that the films are thematically similar to one another. Whereas Dirty Harry was an absurd (if somewhat entertaining) overreaction to increasingly liberal treatment of criminals, the trouble in Assault on Precinct 13 begins when some anonymous cops overstep the law by slaughtering a gang of thugs. This inspires the remaining gang members to retaliate with a "cholo" blood oath against the police, which, as we eventually learn, means that "they don't care" and that "they're not afraid to die." In a remarkable set of coincidences, the vengeful gang tracks the father (Martin West) of the girl (Kim Richards) they randomly executed to the Division 13 police station on a night when the station is being retired and just after a prison bus has made an emergency stop there. So, a busy night for everybody!
- From there, the film pretty much follows the siege-laden plot of Rio Bravo, even going so far as to credit an editor named "John T. Chance," whom we assume is a stand-in for John (H.) Carpenter. Although we aren't quite lucky enough to have landed John Wayne, Dean Martin, and Walter Brennan in this version, Austin Stoker is quite convincing as a brave and honest cop who finds himself in charge of a bad situation. Darwin Joston's laconic charisma, too, is sufficient to render any scene that contains him watchable. Less impressive (but adequate) are Laurie Zimmer as a tough-as-nails police secretary and Tony Burton as a down-on-his-luck prisoner who easily gets in the film's best line with his "Saveass" plan. The gang members are obviously intended to be completely anonymous, so I won't even bother mentioning who played them.
- At any rate, things quickly evolve from the casual "hanging out" of Rio Bravo to something out of a zombie horror film when the gang thugs, who have apparently experienced a rapid bout of exponential population growth, start pouring into the station. Guns are fired, things are exploded, and eventually the good guys win, even if all of them weren't that obviously good to begin with. While the action is predicable, the film is somewhat novel in creating the sort of desolate, almost alien urban environment that Carpenter would later revisit in Escape from New York. It's a place where menacing synthesizer music highlights that lone phone booth in the middle of an abandoned lot while gang members stalk their prey like lions on the savanna. It's not obvious what all of this has to do with real cities, but hey -- that's exploitation.
- The film makes it pretty clear that this is Precinct 9, not 13. Whoops.
