Escape from New York

Revisiting the 1981 Dystopian film

Released: 1981 Run time: 99 mins. Director: John Carpenter Rated: R

Starring: Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Adrienne Barbeau, Harry Dean Stanton. Isaac Hayes

There have been a multitude of dystopian films that have truly attempted to envision what the world would be like decades in the future, not many have been close to nailing it. The 1981 John Carpenter (Halloween) film Escape from New York presents 1997 as a United States in which the great state of New York is a “Prison”, Manhattan Island in particular.

On the way to a very important summit meeting with China and Russia, Air force One is somehow hijacked by a suicidal extremist and The President (Pleasence, You Only Live Twice) is forced to eject to safety from an egg-shaped pod as the plane is flown into a building. The Police Commissioner (and Warden?) Bob Hauk (Cleef, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) attempts a rescue from the prison city but finds the President has already been extracted and captured. Hauk is warned to leave immediately or the President will be killed.

Hauk, with almost completely exhausted solutions devises a plan to use a prison transfer they just brought in to rescue the President in exchange for a full pardon of all past crimes. That prisoner is S.D. Plissken (Russell, Poseidon) or Snake Plissken: War Hero, Former Lieutenant in the Special Forces Unit "Black Light".

Plissken begrudgingly accepts the deal, but is unwittingly injected with two microscopic dissolvable capsules lodged in his arteries that will explode in 22 hours. Hauk states that it is insurance that he does not consider escaping and motivation to bring the President back alive.

Escape from New York is the quintessential early 80’s science fiction action film and Kurt Russell plays a great anti-hero. One of Russell’s best action movies and characters (second is Macready in 1982’s The Thing). To Russell’s protagonist their is the antagonist The Duke, played by the iconic Isaac Hayes (Stargate SG-1, TV Series). Sewer people, gangs, a happy go lucky cab driver that goes by the name Cabbie (Borgnine, The Poseidon Adventure), and an old partner that betrayed him fill out the background of this dystopian science fiction action cult classic. Available on HBO Max, AMC, Amazon Prime Video to rent, or purchase on Amazon.

Front Row: The Duke (Hayes), Brain (Stanton) and Maggie (Barbeau)

In Retrospective ★★★★☆