Escape from L.A.
Directed by John Carpenter
- action
- thriller
- science fiction
The story
Into the 9.6-quaked Los Angeles of 2013 comes Snake Plissken. His job: wade through L.A.'s ruined landmarks to retrieve a doomsday device.
What it’s like
Hot, sun-bleached widescreen frames of a ruined Los Angeles, with a palette of harsh orange dusk, dull concrete and cold blue water, and Carpenter's pulsing synth score running under long, deadpan silences. The mood is cynical, sardonic and dry, a grimy B-movie that plays its absurdity straight. Its pace is episodic, with stretches of wandering through wrecked landmarks broken by sudden bursts of brutal action: gunfire, knife fights, martial-arts scuffles and grisly, unflinching injuries, some of them played for shock. There is crude language, a few sexual innuendos, and a strong sense of cruelty and betrayal, but little that lingers emotionally. The arc is a hard, unsentimental loner who grudgingly stays hard to the end. It suits a late-night, lights-off viewing or a loud, cynical movie evening, and fits people who enjoy a tough anti-hero, retro dystopian grit and a bit of gallows humour. It is not gentle, and anyone wanting something soft or low-stakes should look elsewhere.
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