Escape from New York, the Special Edition, on DVD

John Carpenter has made some dandy movies over the years, and Escape from New York stands up with the best of them.

It’s an imaginative “what if” tale about an outlaw sent on a mission to rescue the president of the United States after his hijacked plane is crashed onto Manhattan island.

Why would they need a rescue mission? Is the president a Republican in the movie?

Well, you see, after a 400 per cent increase in the crime rate in the late 1980’s, New York City (Manhattan, specifically) was walled off and turned into a huge maximum security prison. There, the inmates run the show and the authorites, other than occasional forays into the site, pretty well leave them to their own devices.

So when the president’s (Donald Pleasence) plane is hijacked by some typical leftist revolutionaries and crashed into New York, it’ll take more than just a quick chopper ride over there to get him back.

Enter Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell at his most Clint Eastwood-like). Plissken’s a war hero gone wrong, convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to New York. But Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef), ex-military guy who’s riding herd on Manhattan, grabs him before he can be sent into exile and offers him the rescue mission. Plissken’s going into New York anyway, but if he comes back out with the president, alive, all will be forgiven.

Hauk has a few tricks up his sleeve to ensure Plissken sticks to the plan, much to Snake’s chagrin.

So Snake zips quietly into Manhattan via a glider, lands on top of the World Trade Center and finds himself in an anarchic Big Apple. Can he find the president and bring him out alive before his time is up?

“Escape” is a wonderful sci-fi adventure, intelligently written (despite the basic silliness of turning Manhattan into a prison) and with production values that belie its meager budget. John Carpenter has always excelled in the arena of low budget films and this is one of his best.

The movie has a wonderful look and feel to it, a terrific John Carpenter musical score that captures the mood perfectly, and wonderful performances from Russell, Van Cleef, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, Ernest Borgnine and Isaac Hayes (as the Duke of New York, chief bad guy).

And MGM has done this cult classic justice with a wonderful two disc DVD release.

The movie itself has been given a new, high definition transfer to DVD, and features a clean and crisp anamorphic widescreen (16x9 TV compatible) picture with glorious color.

Audio has been remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and though there isn’t a lot of surround the overall audio quality is very good indeed. In fact, MGM has done a fine job overall of coming up with the definitive version of this great movie.

And of course there’s an abundance of extras. First up is a pair of running commentaries, one featuring producer Debra Hill and production designer Joe Alves and the other featuring the always-entertaining comedy team of Carpenter and Russell, who come across as a couple of old friends hanging out together to revisit another old friend - the movie. The Carpenter/Russell commentary is nearly ten years old, but it’s still terrific.

Disc two is full of stuff, including a bunch of featurettes and “Making of” stuff, an entirely different opening that was deleted (and justifiably so, though it’s interesting to watch it now), playable with optional commentary. You get photo galleries, trailers and the like.

An interesting bonus is a Snake Plissken comic book inside the box, and a quick introduction from Carpenter himself.

This DVD belongs in every John Carpenter fan’s collection.

Escape from New York, the Special Edition, from MGM Home Entertainment
99 min. anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1, 16x9 TV compatible), Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Starring Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes
Produced by Larry Fanco and Debra Hill
Written by John Carpenter and Nick Castle, Directed by John Carpenter

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