I'm think more of Escape from NY, but updated to Escape from the US
Ha! Well, I just looked in my movies notes about Escape from New York. I couldn't stand it and hit eject:
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Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981) -- 12/27/2017, 12/29/2017, 12/29/2017, 08/30/2019
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Rotten Tomatoes data:
99 minutes
Average Rating: 6.9/10
Reviews Counted: 56
Fresh: 48
Rotten: 8
Watched about 1/2 hour of this crap movie. Decided it sucks when I couldn't keep my eyes focused for the boredom at 6PM! WTF. Turned it off, won't watch the rest. Then read Ebert's review and I thought that was perfect. He obviously resented having to sit through the whole thing, in spades. He had almost nothing positive to say about it and grudgingly (I surmize) gave it 2.5/4 stars, maybe for the OK techniques, i.e. filming, editing, cuts, but the characterizations, well, just about everything sucks. Here's what he had to say:
first Maltin:
Escape From New York
US (1981): Science Fiction/Action
Leonard Maltin Review: 2.0 stars out of 4
99 min, Rated R, Color, Available on videocassette and laserdisc
For a "fun" film this is pretty bleak. The year is 1997, Manhattan is a maximum-security prison, and a character named Snake Plissken (Russell) must effect a daring rescue from within its borders. Reminiscent in some ways of Carpenter's ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, which was smaller—and better. Ten minutes added for 1994 video reissue.
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now ebert:
Escape From New York
US (1981): Science Fiction/Action
Roger Ebert Review: 2.5 stars out of 4
99 min, Rated R, Color, Available on videocassette and laserdisc
John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is a cross between three of the most reliable ingredients in pulp fantasy: (1) the President Is Missing, (2) New York Is a Jungle, and (3) the Antihero as Time Bomb. Carpenter has gone after an original angle on each of the ingredients, with disappointing results. The president, for example, would be much more convincing if he were not played as a sniveling wimp by Donald Pleasence. The movie's New York of 1997 would have been more interesting if it were seen as a genuinely different prison society, rather than as a recycled version of THE WARRIORS. And the antihero needs more human qualities and quirks; he seems lifted from old spaghetti Westerns.
These basic problems prevent the movie from becoming more than it is, a competent job of craftsmanship. And yet it's fun to see old standby science-fiction ingredients rehashed for our cynical times.
At the beginning of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, we learn that the city was turned into a federal maximum security prison in 1987, and that several years later the island is ruled by prowling gangs who have their own sources of power, food, and clout. When we see New York, however, it is essentially just a garbage-strewn junkyard roamed by wild-eyed crazies. How do people survive there? If the movie had provided specific details, it could have been fascinating. Instead, we get tantalizing hints of how things work; for example, a gang leader (Isaac Hayes) has a small oil well pumping inside his headquarters.
The president has been missing, endangered, kidnapped, blackmailed, or otherwise inconvenienced in countless other movies and novels. This time, after terrorists hijack Air Force One and crash it into Manhattan Island, the president escapes inside an ingenious armored crash pod that is never explained. He is then held hostage, along with a cassette tape that contains the means of preventing World War III. Carpenter's decision to cast Donald Pleasence in the role reminds us that Pleasence added great credibility and psychic weight to HALLOWEEN, in the role as the psychiatrist. But he never makes a convincing president.
The movie's plot revolves around the decision of the police commissioner (Lee Van Cleef) to send a convicted criminal into New York to bring the president back alive. The criminal is a Special Forces veteran (he fought, we learn, at Leningrad and in Siberia). If he gets the president out within twenty-four hours, he gets a pardon. If he doesn't, tiny time bombs rupture his major arteries. The criminal is played by Kurt Russell, a talented veteran of several Disney movies. Russell is so determined to shake his Disney image that he goes whole hog, with an eye patch, a three-day beard, and a growl so hoarse he seems to be moaning most of the time. It's an interesting idea for a performance, maybe, but nothing is done to give the character human qualities, and so we're allowed to remain detached about his plight.
A bunch of familiar faces turn up in supporting roles. Ernest Borgnine is the last of the wise-guy New York cabbies, still looking for fares in the jungle. Isaac Hayes is the gang leader, the inimitable Harry Dean Stanton is his personal advisor, and Adrienne Barbeau is his "squeeze." Making this list, I keep being reminded of the word I started out with: Ingredients. Everything is here, and it all works fairly well, but it never quite comes together into an involving story or an overpowering adventure.