Review of Escape from New York (1981) by Chris B — 30 Jan 2009

So, what would we do if a sufficiently large proportion of the population became so dangerous to the rest of us for the prison system to be rendered totally inadequate (and some may suggest this has already happened)?

Somehow, I don't think we'd hand over to them a chunk of the world's most desirable real estate. Wouldn't it be better to wall off a section of the Arizona desert, or something? There's a lot more space for one thing, and nobody else wants to live there.

Well, I suppose the makers were trying to raise a point about the NY crime rate at the time. Ironically, between the time the film was made and the year in which it was set crime rates actually fell quite substantially in New York. (Or so I've read. I don't live there, so I can't lay claim to first hand knowledge on this).

For me, the most striking thing about this film was the idea of terrorists crashing a plane into a NY skyscraper, 20 years before it actually happened. Is this a case of life imitating art, or did Osama and his evil cabal get the idea from this film in the first place?

Perhaps John Carpenter, besides being responsible for some of the world's worst films (if you've seen Ghosts of Mars, you'll know what I mean), was also inadvertently responsible for one of the world's worst terrorist attacks. Not that I'm accusing anyone, mind you... I'm just reporting what people are saying...