release year: 1981
genre: sci-fi/action/adventure
viewing setting: home DVD, 11/29/00 and home laserdisc, 7/18/97
what I expected: n/a (already seen it)
what I got: a good premise for a real-life prison
synopsis: The year is 1997 (!) and all of the country's prisons have been amalgamated into one: Manhattan Island. It's a walled, separated place, and once you go in, you don't come out. But when the President is lost in the prison city, someone has to go in and get him. Who better than the one-eyed, sneering, presumed-dead convict Snake Plissken?
impressions: This is a classic of the genre, and was much-imitated in its day (kinda like Die Hard.) It offers a great dark view of the world back in 1981, when things were different. The mood of the city-turned-prison of New York is undeniably powerful; John Carpenter outdoes himself here. Everything is bleak, and there aren't really any good guys, and you never know what's going to happen next.
acting: Kurt Russell plays a good, mean, tough protagonist, someone who's the good guy but is also half-evil, an anti-hero. Donald Pleasance plays a soft, weak President. Supporting roles include Issac Hayes as the Duke of New York, Harry Dean Stanton as his resident tinkerer "Brain", Adrienne Barbeau as Brain's woman, and Ernest Borgnine as Cabbie. Good show by all.
quote: "Snake Plissken? I heard you were dead!"
final word: Necessary viewing for all.
rating: B