![]() He acts heroically not because he’s asked to, but because it’s the right thing to do. He saves those who have his back, cares less about the President and more about the people his actions have hurt, and once the mission is finally complete, his beliefs in a failed system are only reaffirmed. However, Snake wears the reluctant hero extremely well. It’s a warzone where bad decisions could be overlooked for the greater good. Throughout the entire film, Manhattan is clearly not just a prison anymore – it’s a warzone. He robbed a bank, but the point isn’t to dismiss him as a criminal and hope he saves the President – it’s to ensure he lives and finds redemption. By the time Snake actually makes it into Manhattan, we’re already sold on him being the only man for the job. From a list of his commendations and how quickly they were stripped away to his indifference to everyone else’s interests but his own, Russell does an incredible job embodying those traits and character history, all while appearing to have everything under control, even under tense situations. While they may be powerful presences, they are still working-class individuals just trying to make a living.Įscape From New York does a lot of work to establish Snake as the badass he is almost instantly. Even those we now associate as the heroes of the films, like Roddy Piper’s unnamed drifter in They Live and Kurt Russell’s Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China, do not thrust themselves into action. His films often revolve around everyday people forced to confront a new reality. Snake is a certified badass, and everyone – including the inmates in Manhattan and Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) who chose Snake for the mission – is already fully aware of that.Ĭarpenter rarely has characters like Snake Plissken. ![]() ![]() Escape from New York is the rare beast in Carpenter’s filmography where the protagonist rarely feels like his life is in danger because there’s almost always a way out and his experience on both sides of the law keeps him conscious of the potential risks. Even with their training, there’s nowhere to run during the siege on a police station that comes out of nowhere from trying to help an innocent civilian in Assault on Precinct 13. He’s not forced to face an unknown threat like the characters in The Thing, nor is he a defenseless babysitter being stalked by a killer like Laurie Strode in Halloween. Where Carpenter’s heroes are often unprepared or taken aback by the task at hand, Snake is the opposite: he’s conscious of the danger, doesn’t have much to live for, and has the experience to handle whatever obstacles he encounters. Offered a chance for a full pardon if he can bring the President back in 24 hours, Snake accepts the mission and now has to navigate the criminal cesspool of Manhattan. So when Air Force One crashes into the prison, and the President of the United States (Donald Pleasance) is captured by The Duke and held hostage, it’s up to the military to get someone into Manhattan and get the President out before a meeting of world superpowers takes place without his presence.Įnter Snake Plissken, a decorated war hero who found himself on the opposite side of the law when he robbed the Federal Reserve. Set in the near future of 1997, Manhattan has been completely boxed in by the United States government and turned into a maximum-security prison with no way out. However, in 1981, John Carpenter and Nick Castle wrote Escape From New York: an action film about a mission into hostile territory by a reluctant hero.Įscape From New York has since become a classic for so many reasons – it’s iconic Snake Plissken (played by Kurt Russell, and famously paid homage to with Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid protagonist, Solid Snake) a variety of quirky, memorable characters including Ernest Borgnine’s Cabbie, Frank Doubleday’s Romero, Harry Dean Stanton’s Brain, and of course, Isaac Hayes as The Duke and a setting that allows for unrelenting carnage to take place without any repercussion. Up until 1981, and even after that, director John Carpenter tended to depict a similar situation that he could transplant into multiple settings and genres: what if evil invaded an unaware and perceived-to-be safe space? In 1976’s Assault on Precinct 13, a street gang suddenly launches an all-out war on a police station while in 1978’s Halloween, a suburban town is terrorized by a masked killer in 1980s, The Fog, a peaceful, coastal town, is terrorized by an ancient curse and even afterward 1982’s The Thing has a remote science outpost forced to fight a mysterious, infectious alien.
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