OxfordPress.com

Grade: C+

Verdict: Clichéd, of course, but also fast and furious in a cheerful B-movie way.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
Cox News Service

"Assault on Precinct 13" is based on a 1976 movie of the same name, made by a pre-"Halloween" John Carpenter. Which, in turn, was based on Howard Hawks' 1959 Western "Rio Bravo." But zillions of movies have used the same basic plot: people under siege and outnumbered by an outside force.

French director Jean-Francois Richet's version takes place on New Year's Eve 2004. In some dilapidated corner of Detroit, outdated Precinct 13 is facing its final hours. Most of the cops and all of the computers and police radios have moved to the new headquarters, leaving behind a skeletal staff to baby-sit the building on its last night as a police station. They include Ethan Hawke as a former undercover cop so traumatized by a bust gone bad he's opted for a desk job -- with a handy bottle in the drawer; Brian Dennehy as a genial drunk-Irish-cop cliché, on the verge of retirement; and "Joey's" Drea de Matteo as a sexy secretary in a microskirt.

A killer blizzard is raging outside, which not only adds to the sense of isolation, but also triggers the plot. The terrible weather forces a police escort carrying three low-level crooks (John Leguizamo, Ja Rule and Aisha Hinds) and a high-profile criminal kingpin (Laurence Fishburne) to lay over at Precinct 13. Almost immediately, Hawke and company find themselves under assault by unseen enemies (led by Gabriel Byrne) who, presumably, want to spring Fishburne.

"Assault" is the kind of movie in which Hawke's smoldering-but-buttoned-up shrink (Maria Bello) returns to the station for the sole purpose of being trapped there in a low-cut sequined party dress. It's also the kind of movie in which not one, but two people are killed by having something jammed into their necks. And its the kind of movie in which a flotilla of anonymous stuntmen in ski masks do most of the heavy lifting.

That it opts for a low-budget visceral violence over glossy, high-tech computer-generated effects gives the film a scruffy likability. So does its willingness to off most of the cast -- albeit in order of ascending box-office clout.

Richet's direction is sometimes at odds with itself. His artsy shots of a bleached-out blizzard or Hawke's jazzy I'm-bad monologue in the opening sequence don't mesh with the retro, mid-'70s tone and old-school kick-butt plot.

Movies like this don't generally provide fully fleshed-out characters for its actors, but Fishburne glowers convincingly as he fills out his crossword puzzles, and Hawke is effectively mixed-up as a cop who's forgotten how to take charge. The smaller parts, alas, are strictly caricatures, especially Leguizamo who babbles and shakes as if he's been seized by the ghost of Sal Mineo. Byrne is barely there, but when he is, he's coasting on his cold-blooded-killer thing.

Overall, the movie lacks juice. It's simply not pulpy enough. You can only imagine what a B-movie master like Sam Fuller would've done with it or even Carpenter himself, revisiting his material. But the cheese factor is satisfying and the no-frills approach has a gut-level appeal.