Escape From New York (1981) Review

Metal Gear Origins.

John Carpenter’s Escape From New York (1981): 9 out of 10: is a grimy 1981 slice of dystopian pulp which remains one of those rare B-movies that both understands its limitations and weaponizes them. Delivering a film that moves with such brisk efficiency and such confidence that modern audiences, now trained to tolerate action movies longer than most international flights, may find themselves startled by its almost shocking willingness to simply get on with it. Escape From New York is, after all, barely 90 minutes long, which in 2025 might as well make it an experimental short.

We are in the “future” of 1997, although anyone who lived through that year will note the absence of a giant concrete wall around Manhattan and the even more conspicuous absence of gliders landing gently on the roof of the World Trade Center, yet Carpenter presents it all with that grimy neo-noir sincerity that made early-80s genre work feel simultaneously cheap and mythic.

Kurt Russell, in one of cinema’s great scowling performances, plays Snake Plissken, a man so notorious that every single person he meets simultaneously recognizes him and insists he’s supposed to be dead. Snake is coerced to enter the prison/island of Manhattan and retrieve the President of the United States, played with quivering British dignity by former real life POW Donald Pleasence, whose downed escape pod has unfortunately landed somewhere in the urban wasteland near Macy’s.

Once Snake lands his sleek little glider on the Twin Towers, the plot proceeds like a stylish, low-budget video game: he wanders through the ruined city, dodging gangs and meeting figures from his past who alternately help him, betray him, or die unexpectedly messy deaths. There is Adrienne Barbeau as Maggie, whose unwavering toughness and rifle-assisted loyalty stand in stark contrast to her companion Brain, played by Harry Dean Stanton, whose slippery cowardice, and previous betrayal of Snake, gives the story a few more narrative gears than it strictly needs.

And then there is a somewhat wooden Isaac Hayes as the Duke, a villain whose car is adorned with chandeliers in a manner so outrageous that the prop alone could be prosecuted as a hate crime in 2025, especially as it rolls slowly through dim streets to a funk score that somehow makes it even more ridiculous.

The film includes a handful of small, gritty action beats, a gladiator fight with bats and trash cans, a mine-laced bridge crossing, a couple of shootouts, but the standout moment remains the still-shocking Chock Full o’ Nuts scene, in which a doomed blonde is suddenly yanked through the floorboards into the sewers by unseen horrors. It is brief, brutal, and unforgettable, and it does more to establish the stakes of Manhattan Prison than any of the modern franchise-films’ endless “here’s the lore” exposition sequences that drag on for half an hour. Plus, it reminds me of C.H.U.D. which is always a plus.

Indeed, Carpenter never once pauses to tell you how crime got this bad, what political catastrophe led to turning Manhattan into a prison, or how the U.S., China, USSR war works. Escape From New York assumes you came here for the adventure and not a dissertation, a refreshing lack of self-importance that contemporary action franchises, laden with speeches about destiny, geopolitics, and twelve episode villain arcs, seem to have forgotten entirely.

The Good

The Good: Carpenter’s greatest triumph here lies in the film’s unpretentious pacing, for it never dallies, never indulges in lore-drunk monologues, and never attempts to inflate itself into a grand mythos. instead, Escape From New York behaves like the B-movie that it is, moving from scene to scene with such sturdy, old-school craftsmanship that you almost want to show it to modern filmmakers and whisper, “See, this is how you do it.”

Kurt Russell is magnetic, delivering a performance that is simultaneously sardonic, tired, competent, and thoroughly fed-up, all without resorting to the gym-demigod physicality that modern action stars mistake for character. Likewise, the supporting cast (Barbeau, Stanton, Pleasence) brings a lived-in authenticity that outshines films made with ten times this budget. Most of all, that 90-minute runtime is a gift from a kinder universe, especially in an era where action movies think “three hours” is the short version.

I also have to praise the soundtrack. While these are not tunes that necessarily are burning up my Spotify year-end playlist. (apparently I have the musical tastes of a 74-year-old) Escape From New York sports an incredible soundtrack, easily John Carperteners second best. And it fits the movie incredibly well. (His Halloween soundtrack is true perfection.)

The Bad

The Bad: Isaac Hayes, despite having the presence and voice of a man born to announce the final boss in Mortal Kombat feels oddly restrained as the Duke, never quite chewing the scenery with the gusto one might hope for in a post-apocalyptic crime lord.

Likewise, certain action sequences, chiefly the gladiator fight, hit with all the impact of an under-inflated dodgeball, reminding you that Carpenter was stretching nickels. And Snake’s stomach tattoo, allegedly a cobra, looks, uncharitably, like a punctuation mark from a Riddler reboot, which undermines its apparent intended menace every time it appears.

The Ugly

The ugliness in Escape From New York is mostly deliberate. Grimy sets, beer-bellied henchmen, and a sense of urban decay. (They filmed in East St. Louis). Yet, despite this beautifully intentional grit, the movie occasionally dips into the “so low-key it might be asleep” zone, especially if one approaches it expecting Aliens-level intensity or John Wick style choreography.

Escape From New York is a small, efficient B-movie with a few spikes of brilliance, not a high-octane blockbuster designed to rupture eardrums. Still, the true ugliness is how painfully obvious it is that modern action cinema has forgotten the beauty of brevity, subtlety, and letting audiences fill in the blanks.

In Conclusion

Escape From New York is one of those films that seems to improve each decade it survives, not merely because of nostalgia, though nostalgia is certainly lifting a little weight here, but because it’s stripped-down confidence stands in sharp contrast to the bloated, lore-obsessed action franchises of today. It is a B-movie executed with A-movie personality, anchored by a performance from Kurt Russell that should be studied in a class titled “How to Be Cool Without Trying.”

Despite a few underpowered moments and the occasional questionable prop design, the film remains a lean, evocative, wonderfully unpretentious piece of science-fiction pulp, and for all these reasons, and of course because it does not, under any circumstances, overstay its welcome. Escape From New York earns a solid 9 out of 10, with a hearty recommendation for anyone who misses the days when an action movie could be quick, dirty, and utterly memorable.