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BY BRETT MICHEL
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Apart from the unlikely moment when Dick Clark is heard hosting his 2005 countdown, Jean-François Richet’s Assault on Precinct 13 remake does almost everything right, jettisoning most of what made John Carpenter’s California-set 1976 original (itself a remake of Howard Hawks’s 1959 Western Rio Bravo) a taut but motivationally sparse thriller. Borrowing the mise-en-scène of Renny Harlin’s Die Hard 2, this latest Assault takes place during a city-closing blizzard, the first of many welcome changes. After five years undercover, shell-shocked Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke) has become the pill-popping desk sergeant of the soon-to-be decommissioned Detroit Police Precinct 13. But then Jake, his skeleton staff (Brian Dennehy, Drea de Matteo), and his psychiatrist/love interest (Maria Bello) find themselves in the midst of an all-out Fallujah, their station under siege by the rogue "Organized Crime and Racketeering Squad" led by corrupt cop Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne), and they have to form an alliance with a busload of felons (John Leguizamo, Ja Rule, and Laurence Fishburne). A bloody new franchise begins with Hollywood’s first surprise of the new year. At the Apple Valley, Entertainment, Flagship, Holiday, Providence Place 16, Showcase, and Tri-Boro cinemas. (109 minutes)
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