Reviews of Escape from New York (1981) and related work
- Sequel: Escape from L.A. (1996)
Escape from New York (1981
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So... many... plot holes. Enjoyable kitsch includes crediting the roles of “punk”, “bum” and “drunk” in immediate succession. I saw this a second time at Draken’s 2018 SF film festival, where the crowd laughed hardest at the caption “1997: NOW” and at Lee Van Cleef lifting a giant Vietnam-era military telephone receiver instead of a 1990s cell phone. It hasn’t aged well in any sense, but Plissken’s “cool” cynicism, deep enough to throw out world peace, is still iconic for this genre of toxically masculine apocalyptic fantasy. The Warriors (1979) is the superior comment on 1970s New York crime and the accompanying self-image.
References here: Webmaster (1998), The First Purge (2018).