Assault on Precinct 13 (2005) Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Gabriel Byrne, Maria Bello, Drea de Matteo, John Leguizamo, Brian Dennehy, Ja Rule, Currie Graham Movie Review

Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Ethan Hawke in Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)

Your Move Bishop

Ever since an undercover mission went wrong Sgt. Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke) has used his injury to stay away from the action and is why along with Iris Ferry (Drea de Matteo) and Sgt. Jasper O'Shea (Brian Dennehy) he finds himself at Precinct 13 for New Years Eve, stripping the place as the new precinct is opening. But Roenick reluctantly finds himself with guests as a prison bus transporting 4 prisoners, including cop killer Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne), run in to bad weather and need to hold up there for the night. But not long after the prisoners arrival the precinct finds itself under siege as a group of dirty cops lead by Capt. Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne) need to make sure Bishop never makes it to trial. Now Jake is going to have to not only throw himself back in to the action but trust the prisoners to help him, Jasper and Iris defend Precinct 13.

As of writing I am yet to watch the original "Assault on Precinct 13" and so don't expect any comparisons in this review. What I will say is that this 2005 version of "Assault on Precinct 13" is a solid action movie which benefits from having the sort of actors who rather than delivering just gung ho style action manage to deliver the dialogue with enough character to make this a little more interesting. As such "Assault on Precinct 13" very much works because of Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne as on one hand you have Hawke delivering the self blame he still feels over a failed under cover job whilst Fishburne delivers a strong, silent performance which makes us wonder whether he will end up turning his gun on Roenick.

But beyond those two performance "Assault on Precinct 13" is simply a nice under siege movie where we watch are motley crew of cops and prisoners make an uneasy alliance as they try to defend the old precinct 13 building from the sort of police action which makes you wonder how the Capt. would explain the use of force come the next day. But again the action is very much moulded around the type of actor in the movie so whilst there is some guns a blazing style action it is a lot more measured with that sense that in the case of Roenick he would rather negotiate with someone whilst staring down the barrel of the gun than do something dangerous and kill them.

What this all boils down to is that "Assault on Precinct 13" is a solid piece of entertainment with a nice mix of action and character based drama. It makes this the sort of movie which if you were channel surfing late at night and came across it on TV you might stop and watch it.


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