At least this remake doesn’t try to pump up the B-movie elements of its 1976 source with A-list pretensions. This is exploitation material that’s happy to stay that way. Once again, an ill-equipped band of cops and criminals at a nearly abandoned precinct – it is scheduled to close the next day – are attacked in a surprise siege. Whereas original director John Carpenter left the goons faceless – they were symbols, really, of a ghetto given in to chaos – here they are bad cops looking to murder a prisoner before he rats them out. That twist may lessen the sense of existential dread, but it adds a layer of conflicted loyalty, as the gangster prisoner (Laurence Fishburne) and the precinct’s burnt-out sergeant (Ethan Hawke) become wary brothers in arms. They both keep an eye on the dirty cops outside, led by a slumming Gabriel Byrne, and another eye on each other.
