Review of Escape from New York (1981) by Matt M — 05 Feb 2013

I'd never been a huge, huge fan of EFNY, and I'd always wondered why. It seems that people like myself who like John Carpenter's classic films (e.g., Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, etc.) tend to enjoy it a lot. I thought the story was great, the cast was superb, and Snake Plissken is just a fantastic character. For some reason, though, I could never bring myself to think of it as being more than okay. It'd been at least a decade since I'd last seen it, so when I discovered that it was being released on Blu-Ray, I figured I'd give it another shot. After doing so I finally realized why I've never loved Escape From New York: for an action movie, it feels oddly inert throughout much of it.

I think that the main culprit here is the editing of Todd Ramsay. During the action scenes, he tends to hold many shots just a few beats longer than they should be held, which kind of destroys their momentum. (Interestingly enough, Ramsay's previous film as lead editor was Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which has been referred to by many as "The Motionless Picture.") Ramsay also edited Carpenter's next film, The Thing, which is absolutely superb, but The Thing is an entirely different beast (no pun intended...or maybe it was) from EFNY. The Thing is a horror film that is meant to be deliberately paced. There is very little action, rather the focus is on sustained suspense punctuated with short jolts of fright. Holding shots for a few beats too long is actually a good thing there because it plays with the audience's expectations, subtly putting them on edge throughout the duration.

However, Carpenter isn't entirely blameless here. After all, the director is usually a major part of the editing process, but even apart from that, his directing style isn't always the best suited to action films. He often lets things play out in static shots when some camera movement would have really given the shots more energy. His framing and blocking also occasionally look a bit perfunctory and uninspired. When enough of the other elements come together, these problems can be overcome (e.g., Big Trouble In Little China), but combined with the major flaw of the editing, it really drags the movie down.

I'm not saying that some Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer-esque camerawork or editing would have been preferable. I personally like to see what's actually happening on screen, not shaky close-ups of people's faces or hands or whatnot. I just think that some tightening of the pace in the editing room could have done wonders. For example, take a look at Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Road Warrior, both of which came out the same year. I consider both of them to be pretty much textbook examples on how to shoot and edit action sequences. Some could argue that the comparison with Raiders might be slightly unfair given the fact that its budget was three times that of EFNY. That said, though, EFNY's budget was, in turn, triple that of The Road Warrior, and I believe that my abovementioned complaints could have been resolved by something that, in theory, wouldn't have cost more money.

In conclusion, I really wish that I liked EFNY more than I do. Unfortunately, it's just going to have to be one of the Carpenter films that I let pass me by.