By Sean Patrick Leydon
Contributor
The Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by a group of
natives.
The Lone Ranger turns to Tonto and says, “Indians.
Indians all around! Well, Tonto, ol’ Kimosavee, it looks like we’re finished.”
Tonto replies: “What you mean … ‘We?’”
– Mad Magazine No. 38 (1958)
Modern action films are much more predictable than their
predecessors. With many action movies containing similar pacing and messages,
the genre has become thoroughly homogenized. What makes Saving Private Ryan
feel similar to Mission Impossible or other action films? They bombard
the senses with big, flashy action sequences, and they pull at many of the same
heartstrings: family, honor, respect, martial prowess, patriotism, etc.
Today, we’re taking a look at John Carpenter’s Assault on
Precinct 13. It covers a lot of genres: cop flick, drama, thriller, cult.
These days, we’d call it action, but now, that implies top-tier CGI budgets and
the slickest editing known to man. Assault is different. Its moments of
violence are more sickening and human. The feeling of the film is akin to Crash
being bludgeoned over the head with Night of the Living Dead – a
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of gang violence and racial tension.
There’s a trend in recent action films to ignore a
character's ethnicity until it can become the subject of a shallow joke. I see
this often when action films have a gang of heroes from racially diverse
backgrounds, as in the remake of The Italian Job when Mark Wahlberg
introduces his crew. We meet a crew of stylin’ white men with cool specialties
and one black guy who likes to blow stuff up. It’s easy to pick on a flashy
action movie, but do you remember that one time in Full Metal Jacket?
When the troops are negotiating with a prostitute and the black soldier becomes
the butt of the “too beaucoup” joke? Amid the horror of war and mounds of
existential searching, Kubrick manages to find room for a well-hung black man
joke.
There is a different atmosphere in Assault. The
actors are different shades, but race is addressed in more serious and
realistic ways. As Ethan, a black lieutenant, familiarizes himself with the
police station he just took command of, the white receptionist Leigh asks him
if he would like coffee. As Ethan accepts her offer, she asks, “Black?” to
which he responds with a smile and says, “For over 30 years.” The joke falls on
its ass with her. There’s no ribaldry. The conversation just continues as they
get to know each other.
Another aspect that sets Assault apart is a sense of
equality between the law and the outlaw. Criminals and police are both capable
of bumbling stupidity or impressive insight into the real world, and this holds
true in Carpenter’s vision. This pleases me to no end. The relentless othering
of antagonists in film grosses me out. The distillation of conflict into a
Smart Good Guy-Dumb Bad Guy binary is neither inclusive of what we observe in
life nor conducive to good storytelling. Still, this staid form of conflict has
become the expectation of the action genre.
The film opens with a negative depiction of police. As the
film progresses, we meet characters we like and dislike on either side of the
law. Conflicts blossom among many characters and groups, and we encounter the
kind of classic inter-group conflict that arises in every zombie siege flick.
On a filmmaking level, parts of the film read as both more
brutal and quainter than other similar films. Some of this is due to the
inventiveness of Carpenter, while some of it is due to the era in which it was
made. Of the many subtle aspects of Assault that set it apart from the
action genre, my favorite is the treatment death receives. When characters die
in action movies, we are accustomed to melodrama: “Tell my wife thing X,” or
pulling the pin on the grenade, whatever. There’s a brief second life in which
dying characters set things right in the world. In Assault, when you
die, your ruined body falls to the ground – because you are dead, and that is
what dead people do.
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| Mad Magazine No. 38 (1958); drawing by E. Nelson Bridwell |
We’re familiar with rhythm in action films as simple as: The
terrorists did X, so the commandos must complete Y. The sense of foreboding
that Assault manages is largely due to the mysterious motivations of its
silent antagonists. The result is that the film feels like less of a gimme and
more layered with dread than other films. The violence depicted in Assault
is random and chaotic. In action films, the main draw is the risk of death and
how our hero overcomes it, but the hero is always aware of the source of the
danger.
In Assault, characters die in the middle of mundane chores, unaware of the risks they were running being in an action film. Some of the tensest action occurs when Leigh needs to free prisoners so they can help fight off invading gang members. The pacing and editing do no let up. Everything needs to happen at exactly the right time, or our heroes die. The sequence brings together all of the film’s major themes – race, the threat of violence, the commonalities between cops and criminals – and the ultimate message is interesting. Teamwork is important. At one point, Leigh turns to Wells, a prisoner she has freed who is tempted to make a run for it. She says: “No sides to it. We’re all together.” A far cry indeed from “What you mean … ‘We?’”
Sean Patrick Leydon is a photographer, artist, and contributor to Last Cinema Standing. You can check out more of his work at nonotthought.blogspot.com.
