Plot
During a horrific snow storm on New Years Eve, Sergeant Jake Roenick oversees the closure of his precinct as they prepare to move locations.
He is suffering from severe PTSD, due to a botched drug sting months ago which saw the deaths of his entire team.
with him on this fateful night are the precinct secretary iris, his good friend jasper – and the precinct therapist Alex.
The night is thrown into turmoil, when a prison bus carrying mob boss Marion bishop turns up, having recently been arrested for killing a cop in cold blood.
Outside however is a gang of cops, not just out for revenge for their fallen comrade – but they need to keep Bishop from testifying against them – as they were all on his payroll!!!
Direction
Directed by Jean-François Richet, who had big shoes to fill to follow the 1976 version. He actually does a solid job, and utilises both the night time setting and the blistering storm setting to his advantage. You really feel these characters environment around them.
Cast
A stacked cast of of ‘then and now’ famous people.
Ethan Hawke plays Roenick
Laurence Fishburn plays Bishop (interestingly taking the name of the protagonist from the first movie)
Brian Dennehy plays Jasper.
Maria Bello plays Alex
Drea DeMatteo plays Iris
Gabriel Burne plays Marcus Duvall
Other important cast members who appear throughout are; John Leguizamo (as Beck one of the prisoners travelling with Bishop), Aisha Hinds (as another one of the prisoners), Ja Rule (as Smiley another prisoner), Matt Craven and Kim Coates (as colleagues of Roenick), Currie Graham as one of Duvall’s Lieutenant’s and Titus Welliver as the cold open bad guy (with a terrible accent to boot).
Breakdown
Director Richet had big shoes to fill in taking this job, especially as he had not yet made a name for himself much within Hollywood, having only directed a small handful of movies back in his native France.
The film begins with a standard “cold open” where main cop Jake (Hawke) is involved in a drug bust gone bad that sees two of his partners killed in action. Haunted by what he let happen, he has hit the bottle, and is abusing tablets – secretly of course. His therapist Dr Alex Sabian believes he is hiding behind a desk job because he is afraid to make the same mistakes again.
On NYE during a snow storm, a bus carrying a load of prisoners, (including Aisha Hinds Anna, Ja Rule’s Smiley, John Leguizamo’s Beck – and Laurence Fishburne’s Bishop) must seek refuge from the storm in a soon to be decommissioned Police Station. This takes the same story points from the first film – a police station is closing down, a bus load of prisoners have arrived, the prisoners assist the cops in fighting the bad guys outside.
Here it puts its own unique spin on it. The first film had the neighbourhood almost empty due to the crime in the city, here the neighbourhood is full of large industrial businesses, that are all closed – so the gunfire that occurs falls on deaf ears. The bad guys outside have a different motive here too. This time, they are a bunch of crooked cops who are desperate to keep Bishop from testifying against them, and those inside the station are ‘collateral damage’.
The bad guys are just as brutal here too as the gang were in the first film, with most of the ‘inside station’ characters getting killed off during the proceedings. Some are quite shocking and confronting, with one character – who is the most innocent of all the characters getting a bullet between the eyes. Considering the inspiration for this film (reviewed last week) and how it too was brutal in its own kills, this does the same.
Like the inspiration film, this too has some great moments between the good guy cop Hawke, and ‘bad guy’ Bishop (who takes the namesake of the good guy cop from the 1976 film). They are at loggerheads throughout the film – but due to the situation outside, they continuously mention how their “shit is on pause”.
There are some moments that do feel a little contrived, especially given the modern day setting. The cell/mobile phone signals are ‘scrambled’ by the bad guys so no one can call for help. I just felt this was a little too convenient for the screenplay (but they did have to explain why the characters couldn’t call for help).
There is also a cliche “good guy is with the bad guy moment” towards the end of the film, in which *** spoiler but its been over 20 years *** Brian Dennehy’s Jasper is part of the bad guy’s crew. This too felt like it was included “just because we had to have it in there” moment. It actually would have made more sense if it was Matt Craven’s Capra – as he wasn’t with the group for 80% of the film.
While Laurence Fishburne is ‘sort of’ the bad guy, the real bad guy is cop Duvall – who was part of Bishop – himself a crime boss. While this does somewhat stand alone on its own, if we are comparing it to the 1976 version, Bishop has none of Napoleon Wilson’s charisma, and he is just a Fishburne doing his usual thing… which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s fine, just the original is better.
Overall
The film makers had big shoes to fill here, but what presents is a solid effort.
The supporting characters are a little fleshed out more, and when they do go (like the four good guys in quick concession moment… sad-face) you do feel something.
The main characters are good, but they were much better in the 1976 version. The direction is sound however, and does what it needs.
3.5/5
Please also check out my Podcast on Youtube, where we review a new movie every week! Please subscribe!
Ryan's Movie Reviews 