Escape From New York (1981)

This is a film.

I say that because this 99 minutes has no delusions of being anything else.

There's no pretence of genius, no profound allegory to sagely nod at, and definitely no attempt to elicit any sort of emotional response.

The crazy premise - that all of New York is now one gigantic unchecked prison - is given with a voice-over (remember those?) at the start, after which the entire upcoming plot is explained to an eyepatched character called 'Snake'.

He's a good guy turned bad, and therefore an obvious choice for the US government to send in to rescue their lost president. Despite all his special forces training, Snake's default activity seems to be waltzing around in open spaces, announcing to anyone within earshot exactly what he's secretly up to.

Maybe he misjudges the size of those spaces. He does only have the one eye.

Along the way, he meets another man called 'Brain' (Egad!), a comedy cab driver, and a woman whose sole contribution to the story is to have a cleavage. No attempt is made to make us care about any of these rogues, not even Snake, so events transpire with a real clarity.

I hear they're in talks to remake this. No doubt that'll mean that new Snake will be out to rescue his child, aided by a modern tough-talking woman who steals his heart, plenty of violins on the soundtrack, and some sort of deep metaphor for Iraq. In 3-D. (sorry Snake)

Maybe they should have called this original version Escape From Hollywood.

Available here.