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While the seeming aforementioned pseudo political subtext lends weight to the comic book antics, a lot of it doesn’t exist and is just modern interpretation informed by recent history. His rasping, hoarse oesophagus makes Jason Statham sound like a Bee Gee on helium, but it’s a key cog to the rogue military man make-up that helped shape the alpha/army character which fronted 80s action cinema. Russell owns Plissken, swooning cool and ersatz-absurd in his black vest, off-white combats, eye patch, stubble and mullet that looks more like a lion’s mane mounted on a crash helmet. The rest of the starry (for the time) supporting cast include: Adrienne Barbeau, Harry Dean Stanton and Ernest Borgnine as New York residents/ Snake allies with Charles Cyphers’ Secretary of State working alongside Tom Atkins and Lee Van Cliff to guide Snake remotely, and bring the president home.
![one eye snake escape from new york one eye snake escape from new york](https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/540498bd193f09557a7d10e4/master/w_2560%2Cc_limit/kurt-russell-escape-from-new-york-MSDESFR_EC007_H.jpg)
Shoot-outs and fisticuffs take precedence over stunts and explosions while gnarly kooks and street punks dot our hero’s path with obstacles without story stalling to interject set-pieces.Įlectric haired robo-troll Romero, played by the recently departed Frank Doubleday, is sidekick to Isaac Hayes’ monotone pimp swag scoundrel, The Duke whose dated attire and chandeliered drive bawls parody like Antonio Fargas’ Flyguy in I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.
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![one eye snake escape from new york one eye snake escape from new york](https://c2.vgtstatic.com/thumbll/1/8/183975-v2-xl/carmine-persicos-house.jpg)
What the president’s men relay is sufficient and more than Snake would allow. Bit-slice/ Orca computer graphics and Carpenter’s thudding synth stabs grace the milieu and encapsulate tech trends with the simmering cyberpunk sub-culture.Ĭarpenter and Nick Castle’s screenplay sashays at a snake’s pace, despite time being of the essence, without deviating or deepening the main character beyond all we need to know. Complete with plume spewing sewers, trash laden sidewalks and graffiti street signs, preceding Blade Runner’s neon cityscape which arrived a year later. The Big Apple has corroded into a stark, dark, jazz blue Noir dream or a gas lit wasteland. The set-up imparts, via robotic voice-over, providing context on New York of the future. The government dispatches scowling one-eyed convict Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) to rescue him, armed with a gun, tracker, the chance of freedom and a deadly serum pumping through his veins that will only be neutralized upon the president’s safe return. Air Force One crashes there, leaving US president (Donald Pleasence) stranded. The concept is high: it’s 1997 (the future/ “NOW”), Liberty island has been transformed into a maximum security prison. Escape From New York melts urban/punk Noir aesthetics into 80s action with a dash of inadvertent political/ social commentary that’s less at the subtext’s foreground than the consumerism/ conformity nods in They Live, but “evident” in retrospect. Re-released alongside three other John Carpenter 4K restorations (The Fog, They Live, Prince of Darkness), the horror master’s dystopian action sci-fi from 1981 seethes on the big screen while seeming paradoxically low-fi next to the great swathe of action trash that followed in its wake.