There's one great moment in this film, truly shocking, and that's the one with the little girl at the ice cream truck (played by Disney film star Kim Richards no less, adding to the shock). The rest is so weakly done that's it hard to feel any real tension, and I found my attention wandering. In Night of the Living Dead like fashion, a ragtag group finds themselves holed up in a defunct police station, one that's being sieged by a violent gang. Not much of how anyone acts is believable, starting with the father of the little girl, and continuing on to the interactions between the cops and the death row convict who's wound up there. The slow pacing and poor acting are counterbalanced a little by Carpenter's soundtrack, but not enough. It also seems like the premise could have been taken in much more interesting directions than the very linear plot with minimal social commentary that we got here. It's a very forgettable effort, one that I don't understand the cult appreciation for.
Review of Assault on Precinct 13
