When Escape From New York came out in 1981, its premise could have been considered a distant possibility—that by the late ’90s, Manhattan would be a maximum-security penal island, blocked on all shores by a 50-foot wall and patrolled by helicopters and jets. Other than that, the only rules are once you get chucked in there, you don’t come out.
Kurt Russell is about to get chucked in there for robbing the federal reserve, then cuts a deal to guarantee his freedom if he can rescue the President of the United States whose plane has crashed on the island and who’s being held captive by a bunch of goons ruled by a twitchy-eyed Isaac Hayes.
The fact that like only one scene was filmed in New York City kind ruined everything for me. New York had to have been gritty and deteriorated and filled with enough unsavory locals to make it work, although probably not without the theft of some cameras and John Carpenter’s wallet.
I do like that Kurt seems to be channeling his sneering rasp directly from Clint Eastwood (and like Eastwood, seems to have spend an awful lot of time blow-drying his silky hair for an alleged tough guy). I also appreciated that the President of the United States, whom Kurt succeeds in saving from certain peril, has a British accent for no discernable reason.