Does the 2005 film hold a candle to the original? Well, no, but it’s still a pretty fun, gnarly time!
Welcome to Reb00t! A series (with no set schedule!) where I dig deep through the 2000’s to find all the horror remakes that we were inundated with over that weirdly bleak decade. Sometimes they’ll be good, sometimes they’ll be terrible, sometimes they’ll be great. In a few, rare times, they’ll be better than the original! These are all my personal views, obviously, so feel free to tell me I’m insane in the comments.
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This week, the inaugural week, I dove head first into the Aughts remake cycle, starting with 2005’s Assault On Precinct 13. This article will contain spoilers for a 20-year-old film and a 50-year-old film. You’ve been warned!
Now, the original needs no introduction. The film that kicked off John Carpenter’s career*, 1976’s Assault On Precinct 13 is arguably the greatest exploitation film of all time. It’s gritty, it’s mean, it’s violent as hell. A modern retelling of Rio Bravo, we follow a ragtag group of police officers, criminals, and civilians stuck in a decommissioned police station, fighting off waves of gang members attempting to break in and kill them all. It’s a film that could’ve been a lot of sizzle and no steak, but Carpenter shows right from the start that he is a world-class filmmaker, infusing the film with intense racial tension and views on police brutality. It’s a film that is still as potent today as it was in 1976.
Then, in 2005, Assault got its remake. Directed by Jean-Francois Richet (Blood Father, Plane), 2005’s Assault shifts quite a bit away from the source material. The decommissioned police station stays the same, as does the ragtag group of survivors. Where the script differs, though, is in the race politics and the aggressors. Gone is the racial tension between the black police officer and the white criminal; here, the police captain is played by Ethan Hawke, and the criminal by Laurence Fishburne. What was a simmering flashpoint in both the film and America at large in ‘76 was completely erased in the ‘05 remake.
Additionally, the change in the aggressors is also a complete departure from the original. In the ‘76 film, the gang members trying to push their way into the police station are faceless entities, more like insects trying to find a weak point in the wall, bordering on supernatural in their resilience. In the ‘05 film, they’ve been wholly replaced by corrupt cops, hellbent on killing the one man who can rat them all out. Instead of them just being darkened faces in the shadows, we spend a good amount of time with these cops, learning about their motivation and how far they’ll go to get the job done.
So, the big question here is; is it any good? Before I answer that, I think the most important thing here is to be able to take this as its own thing. Sure, it’s a remake, but you still want to be able to judge it on what it singularly is, as best as possible. ‘05 Assault, in particular, is good at never really giving any callbacks to the original. Many of the remakes from this era are so hellbent on referencing and giving homage to the originals that you can’t help but judge them against one another.
So, if we are to strip away the bias of comparing it to the original, what are we left with? Honestly, it’s a pretty solid and incredibly mean-spirited siege film that really doesn’t have any deeper message beyond “corruption is bad.”
The ‘05 film has a surprisingly deep roster, cast-wise. There is the already mentioned Hawke and Fishburne, but you’ve also got Gabriel Byrnes, Maria Bello, Drea de Matteo, John Leguizamo, Brian Dennehy, and Ja Rule. Pretty much everyone either shooting or being shot at is a recognizable face. It also makes sure to put these pretty faces through the wringer, as ’05 Assault is essentially wall-to-wall action sequences once the first “assault” occurs. Everything from automatic machine gun fire, grenades, assault helicopters, Molotov cocktails, a Tommy gun, and even a samurai sword makes an appearance during all of the violent mayhem.
It’s also incredibly mean-spirited. I’m not saying the ‘76 film is soft, but the ‘05 film rides right on that line of being straight-up nihilistic, as our cast of characters is put through the meat grinder. There is one character in particular, therapist Dr. Alex Sabian (Maria Bello), whose experiences and her reactions to them feel genuinely cruel all the way up to her shocking demise.
This harshness, this nihilism, actually falls in line with my theory that ‘70s horrors remade in the aughts work a lot better than from other eras. The very specific dark mood of the ‘70s, caused by Watergate, Vietnam, and civil unrest, is not all that different from the trauma of the aughts, where filmmakers were working through their anxieties from 9/11, the War On Terror, and the market crash of ‘08. The same streak of nihilism connects the two eras of horror cinema, and their connector points are these remakes. As we continue this series, we’ll see how this theory pans out.
Now, to the narrative change which I can’t tell is a political message or just something the screenwriter thought was cool: the corrupt cops. Historical context would lead me to believe that this is truly just a “this sounds cool” change to the script (in ‘05, post 9/11, the police were still viewed as borderline angels in this country). That being said, what it is saying here is still very pointed, as the lead corrupt cop, played by Gabriel Byrne, keeps repeating that the loss of a few lives is worth it to keep his men safe. It’s admittedly an extreme way of saying it, but that’s essentially just “The Blue Wall,” where police will turn a blind eye or stay completely silent about police corruption and brutality. It might not have landed in any sort of way in ‘05, but if this was released in 2020, I think ’05 Assault‘s reception would be a whole hell of a lot different. This is all to say that, sure, the ‘05 film drops almost all of the politics of the original, but that’s ok because it’s still doing some politicking of its own (and, you know, the original still exists, too).
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As we come to the end, the real question now stands: Is this worth a watch? My recommendation is a pretty resounding Yes. Yeah, it’s not as good as the original, but it’s still doing a lot of its own things that are unique and fun. I never felt bored or wanted to roll my eyes at how badly they had tried to reference something. Your mileage may vary, based on your love of the original, but this is still a fun, grisly ride.
*Yeah, sure, Dark Star was his first film, but I’m sorry, I’m not counting a student film that got kicked into a dozen drive-ins as his “breakout” moment. It’s Assault. Deal with it.
