ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (2005). A favorite of critics and cultists alike, 1976’s Assault On Precinct 13 was a nifty little “B” flick that John Carpenter helmed before hitting the big time with Halloween. Propelled by an excellent music score (composed by Carpenter) and economical in its use of settings, dialogue and character development, the film concerns itself with the members of an LA street gang who descend upon a nearly abandoned police station with the sole purpose of wiping out everyone inside. That the protagonists never learn the reason for the siege (though we do) adds to their sense of discombobulation, and the brutal death of a little girl in the early going remains one of the most disturbing (and unexpected) acts of homicide ever committed on screen. In this flashy update, there’s no little girl, no bloodthirsty street gang and no kick-ass Carpenter score. Instead, we get a competent but entirely generic action opus in which a group of rogue cops attack the precinct in order to kill a captured crime lord whose testimony would put them behind bars. Laurence Fishburne plays the cool-under-fire kingpin, who reluctantly teams up with an honest officer (Ethan Hawke) to ensure his own survival. Bucking the trend of cinematic puritanism that Carpenter himself helped jump-start with Halloween (in which the heroine was a virgin while her victimized friends were all sexually active), this movie switches cultural gears by allowing the nympho (Drea De Matteo) to be more heroic than the bookworm (Maria Bello). Beyond that, expect no surprises from yet another needless remake. DVD extras include deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes feature, and short pieces on the film’s stunts, set design and arsenal of weapons.
Movie: 
Extras: 1/2</b
BROKEN LANCE (1954) / THE BRAVADOS (1958) / WARLOCK (1959). These three CinemaScope productions are among the nine catalog titles (all Westerns or war flicks) which Fox Home Entertainment released last week – as their press release put it, “just in time for Father’s Day” (or, more accurately, just in time to place orders for Father’s Day).
Broken Lance, an Oscar winner in the long-defunct category Best Motion Picture Story, is basically King Lear with a Western setting. A cattle baron (Spencer Tracy) gets along splendidly with his youngest son (Robert Wagner) yet displays nothing but contempt for his older boys (Richard Widmark, Hugh O’Brian and Earl Holliman). As poor health and changing times work against him, he discovers the kingdom he so carefully built up now threatens to be destroyed by his vindictive offspring. Katy Jurado, as Tracy’s Native American second wife (and mother of Wagner’s character), earned an Oscar nomination for her supporting turn. And the film helped further establish Wagner as a leading man of immense appeal, if limited acting ability. But Tracy dominates the proceedings. He delivers a commanding performance in a complex role, playing a hardened man who rations his love as if it were water from a canteen.
In the same vein as the string of psychological Westerns made by star James Stewart and director Anthony Mann during the 50s, The Bravados finds Gregory Peck teaming up with director Henry King (their fifth of sixth collaborations) for a hard-hitting saga with some nice twists at the end. Peck stars as Jim Douglas, a cowboy who rides 100 miles to witness the executions of the four men who raped and murdered his wife. Hours before they’re to be hanged, though, the outlaws escape, forcing Taylor to hunt them down and kill them. Joan Collins is negligible as the new woman in Taylor’s wife, but Peck lends conviction as a gunman whose lust for vengeance begins to cloud his judgment.
In his annual Movie Guide, critic Leonard Maltin has long stated that Warlock is “forgotten, but worthy of rediscovery.” That’s pretty much the consensus among many who have seen this exceptional Western, which used to turn up regularly on television but has long since disappeared from the scene. (I first caught it during my teen years, rediscovered it in my early 20s, and have since been wondering where the hell it went.) If nothing else, the high-caliber cast commands attention: Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn and DeForest Kelley (a few years before he achieved sci-fi immortality as Dr. McCoy on Star Trek). Warlock’s the name of a town known for its lawlessness, a condition that leads its respectable citizens to hire a notorious gunslinger (Fonda) to serve as their marshal. With the help of his crafty sidekick (Quinn), he gets the job done, but his mercenary status begins to irk many of the townspeople, and things become even more complicated when a repentant outlaw (Widmark) becomes the community’s officially sanctioned sheriff. The dense storyline doesn’t always pan out as expected in this bracing saga that predated Unforgiven in its ability to dig a little deeper into the mythology of the Old West.
Extras on the various DVDs include theatrical trailers and brief Movietone news footage.
Broken Lance:
The Bravados:
Warlock: 1/2
Extras: 1/2
WHITE NOISE (2005). Forget all that talk about dead people: I thought I saw dead careers until this January afterthought grossed a respectable $55 million. White Noise asks viewers to accept Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) – the method by which the dead communicate with the living through such household devices as televisions and radios – as cold, hard fact, and then proceeds to spin a fantasy yarn that can’t even get its own story straight. Michael Keaton headlines as Jonathan Rivers, a successful architect whose pregnant wife (Chandra West) dies in a car accident. It’s not long before a fuzzy figure starts appearing through the snowy static on Jonathan’s TV set, but rather than assume (as most of us would) that he’s illegally receiving HBO without a converter box, he’s led to believe by a portly stranger (Ian MacNeice) that it’s actually his deceased wife trying to communicate with him. As Jonathan becomes increasingly obsessed with trying to decipher messages through all the static, he finds that he’s being stalked by three shadowy figures that are meant to be malevolent spirits but which, truth be told, look exactly like the Sean Penn-Tim Robbins-Kevin Bacon silhouettes that graced the poster for Mystic River. It’s a coin toss as to whether this shameless movie cribs mostly from Poltergeist, The Ring or The Sixth Sense; in any case, its inconsistencies prove to be the primary culprit, as this silly movie never plays fair even within the parameters of its own supernatural milieu. For film fans, DVD extras include deleted scenes; for the gullible, they include a recording session with “actual” voices from the beyond as well as a short piece on how you – yes, you! – can make your very own EVP recordings within the comfort of your own (presumably haunted) home.
Movie: 1/2
Extras: 1/2
This article appears in Jun 1-7, 2005.
