My Cultural Diet

In the distant future of 1997, crime is so rampant that the U.S. government has converted Manhattan into a giant maximum security prison. Anyone who ends up in there is never getting out, which proves unfortunate when Air Force One is hijacked by terrorists and the president is left to the mercy of the gangs that now rule the city. The president’s only hope for rescue is Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a former war hero who’s now a convicted criminal himself. Plissken is given 24 hours to rescue the president before an important peace summit, or else his life is forfeit, as well. Written and directed by John Carpenter, Escape from New York hasn’t aged quite as well as some of Carpenter’s other films (e.g., Big Trouble in Little China). Nevertheless, its grim humor and cynical streak still possess an edge — Carpenter originally wrote the film in response to the Watergate scandal — and its vision of a decrepit, run down New York remains the gold standard of dystopian urban imagery.

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