Videos Revisited by Vince Cornell: Escape From New York

In the American cultural wasteland , I find myself like some kind of Road Warrior, picking through the wreckage to find what I can for my children to enjoy.  Rarely is a movie or show found without blemish, but what else can be expected in these post-civilized badlands?  In order to better "curate"** the experience for the young ones, like a chef using presentation skills to cover for a less than stellar meal, I often group these movies and shows together under thematic titles, and being a dad who believes in the tradition of the cringe-inducing dad joke, the titles are enriched with cheesy puns.  This past summer we watched movies about the bleak future ahead under the heading of “Dystop-a-June”, and Advent, a season that traditionally blends hope in the coming of Our Savior with the dread of the end of days, seems an appropriate time to revisit some of these films.

The first movie in this series is especially prescient given recent electoral results: Escape from New York.  This 1981 John Carpenter movie  is set in the future when  New York City has become the maximum security prison for the whole country.   A massive wall built around the island of Manhattan keeps the criminals contained, but, other than shooting anything that dares to climb over the wall, no further regulation or oversight is required, leaving the prisoners inside to do whatever they like.  Unfortunately, a plane carrying the President of the United States crashed within the borders, and there’s only 24 hours to get him out.  Enter Kurt Russel as Snake Plisskin in what has become the stereotypical dystopian anti-hero.  A young, decorated soldier who lost his faith in the system, tried to audit, er, I mean rob the Federal Reserve, and has now been sentenced to spend the rest of his days in the prison of New York.  Security Chief Lee Van Cleef sees an opportunity, and he makes a deal with Snake that if he gets the President out safely, he’ll have his criminal record scrubbed clean.

This is a John Carpenter movie, so there are no pretenses to being highbrow (there is an actual professional wrestling match with trash can lid shields and nail covered baseball bats!); however, there’s an earnestness that everyone is bringing to the table that makes it enjoyable.  Disney child star Kurt Russel is ridiculous in his eye patch and constant grimace, delivering every line in a raspy voice, but, when compared to more recent movies where the hero is either a feminized beta male or an omnipotent girl boss, he seems almost charming in his straightforward attempts at masculinity.  Ernest Borgnine, Adrienne Barbeau, and Harry Dean Stanton make up the rag tag band that gathers around Snake to save the President, and while there’s no effort to even pretend that they’re fleshed out characters, the actors seem to be enjoying themselves.  Donald Pleasance, as the President, yelling out “A-Number One!” while spraying machine gun fire at the big bad guy is definitely a highlight.

The reason for the urgency is that the President is carrying a cassette tape with the formula for nuclear fusion on it or some other such MacGuffin which needs to be presented at the World Council to ensure “peace” for all humanity.  While Snake succeeds in bringing both the President and his cassette tape out of New York with just minutes to spare, the cynical and cavalier way the President thanks Snake and barely acknowledges the lives lost along the way, being more concerned with looking presentable for his imminent television broadcast, disgusts Snake enough that he walks away from the entire affair but not without getting the last laugh.

Set in the at-the-time future world of 1997, it’s amusing to look at how unrealistic was John Carpenter’s vision as compared with our current reality.  A government that wanted to protect the United States citizens from criminals by keeping them in a prison?  If only!  Instead, we live in a world where judges consistently let violent thugs loose on the general populace after multiple offenses because to do otherwise would be racist or unfair to the criminal.  A world where the governments of the world seek nuclear power to help stabilize economies seems quaint when one lives in a world where governments are closing nuclear plants in order to throw money at their corporate buddies to invest in unsustainable “green” technologies.  Ernest Borgnine playing a genial, white, English speaking cabbie?  Talk about fiction!  And after Joe Biden and Donald Trump, even the idea of a president understanding how to look presentable for a news broadcasts inspires incredulity.

While there is some vulgar and profane language and Ms. Barbeau leaves little question as to what assets she’s bringing to the film, the real shortcoming in Escape from New York is that it’s far too optimistic about what the future of America will look like.  Given the current state of the Western world, including Europe, Canada, Australia, and the USA, there’s no where left to which we can escape.  Thankfully, as the liturgical season reminds us, there are still reasons to hope, and in this we at least still have a leg up over Snake Plisskin.

** Curate in the sense of select is slated for elimination at this site, edd.