The Greatest Trick

John Carpenter was approaching greatness when he made this solid B-movie in 1976; having just delivered an impressive piece of sci-fi comedy with Dark Star, and with the masterfully directed horror hat-trick of Halloween, The Fog and The Thing to come, he was about to really hit his stride. This isn’t quite Carpenter at his best, but it gives a good foretaste of what was to come.

A police lieutenant is given a dead-end job for the night - looking after a station (in a part of town renowned for its gang violence) that’s closing down for good the following day - when a terrified, speechless man runs in seeking shelter. Minutes later, all hell breaks loose as the well-armed gang on the man’s tail arrives at the police station intent on seeking revenge for the murder he has just committed (I won’t spoil one of the movie’s most shocking moments by saying why he kills a gang member). The skeleton staff of the abandoned precinct must defend themselves at all costs, while at the same time dealing with a group of criminals being transported from prison to death row who have been forced to make an emergency stop at the station…

Nearly 30 years later, re-directed by Jean-François Richet, the story has been given a minor overhaul and updated with various elements designed to make it work better for today’s cinemagoer. The assault, for example, is the work of a corrupt cop rather than a local gang, the plot takes one or two more twists and turns before working itself out, and the characters are given extra ‘depth’. I have to say I don’t think these changes make a vast improvement, and the things that let the original film down are either still there or have been replaced by other disappointing elements. Like Ethan Hawke.

What I really loved about the original version was the relentless and faceless nature of the enemy. The only gang members you see are featured right at the start of the film, and while it is safe to assume that these are the ones orchestrating the attack on the police station, you never see them. In fact, you don’t really see any of the attackers’ faces, which helps to bring a sense of terror to the proceedings. Of course, it also means that when they are killed you don’t care about it at all, which always sits uneasily with me; in fact, it makes it feel very much like a zombie movie, just with the monsters moving that bit more quickly, and the 2005 version doesn’t have this feel about it at all. I also liked the way that those being attacked really had no clue as to why, except that they were in a violent part of town. Only the audience knows about the killings at the start which kick the whole thing off, and this provides a sense of helplessness which the characters must also be feeling.

The look and sound of the 1976 movie have been sensibly updated in the 2005 version, if only by virtue of using new film stock and not lighting everything as dingily as Carpenter likes to do. It’s been a while since I watched the three films I mentioned at the start of the review, but I seem to remember them being very dark and muted in terms of the colour palette, and this is the same. I’m sure this wouldn’t be such a problem in the cinema, but at home it makes it harder to watch (especially as I get more and more prone to falling asleep whenever I sit on the sofa for more than 5 minutes). John Carpenter also composed the music for the film, and I don’t think this is one of his best, to be honest, and at some points distracts from the events on screen.

While the 2005 version of the story looks and sounds up-to-date (as it should!), the fact that the writers and film-makers feel the need for it to conform to current filmic tastes and Hollywood conventions lessen its impact for me. Like I said, the characters and plot of the first film have precious little exposition or scenes establishing their motivations, while here we get a whole prologue explaining why Ethan Hawke’s character is so troubled, for example. Hawke (and, to a lesser extent, Laurence Fishburne, who plays the mafia boss being transported past the station when a blizzard forces them to stop) has never been an actor I have particularly rated, as to me he looks like he might just burst into tears at the slightest provocation. Fishburne is just quite hammy in most things I’ve seen of his (although he couldn’t ruin The Matrix), and his performance here hasn’t changed my opinion. Both films are clearly violent, and the first one is probably less restrained with this; having said that, the remake contains a lot more swearing.

So neither film is perfect, but both are worth watching. Whether a remake was necessary is a different question, but at least this time the remake is not merely a shoddy reflection of a brilliant piece of work, as they often are (see Les Diaboliques & Diabolique for a perfect example of this).