Hollywood Product - Assault on Precinct 13

Assault on Precinct 13Genre: Police shoot-‘em-up

Opens: Wed., Jan. 19

The pitch: A snowbound Detroit station house on the verge of closure falls under siege from Gabriel Byrne’s death squad of crooked officers out to kill Laurence Fishburne’s dapper crime lord and any witnesses. Never entirely convincing as a grown-up, Ethan Hawke’s “Sarge” rallies the cops, robbers and civilians against the attackers.

Body count: About 20. Director Jean-Francois Richet specializes in grisly head injuries, but provides occasional variations involving Molotov cocktails and a sword from the evidence room.

Money shots: The taut prologue shows Hawke’s undercover sting go awry. Hawke kills one assailant with a handy icicle. The precinct lights go out, and the good guys find themselves surrounded by red laser sightings. “The Sopranos’” Drea de Matteo stops a henchman with a thump to the Adam’s apple.

Flesh factor: As Hawke’s shrink, Maria Bello just happens to get stuck in the building wearing a low-cut, backless New Year’s Eve party dress, and she bends forward a lot. De Matteo’s nympho office worker shows off her festive fishnet hose.

Product placement: The officers catch part of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” and we hear Clark’s own voice. But in real life, health problems kept Clark from rockin’ in 2005.

Best line: “Our shit is paused.” Hawke and Fishburne declare a temporary truce to fight their common enemy.

Worst line: “Old School is retiring! I’m packing it in — just like this place!” The only thing more cliched than a cop on the eve of retirement is having Brian Dennehy play him.

Hit single: KRS-One’s “Generique Assault” exemplifies the weird trend of closing-credit songs that hype the movie you just finished watching. The rapper praises the actors by name, samples the “our shit is paused” line and provides blurb-worthy lyrics like, “What an ending! What a conclusion! They thought they was winnin’ but they really was losin’!”

Better than the original?: No. John Carpenter’s all-but-forgotten lo-fi action flick generates heat and tension with practically no money. The remake pays homage to the original by naming Fishburne’s role “Bishop” after the first film’s hero.

The bottom line: The opening promises an edgy action flick that the rest of the film never delivers. Consider it an Assault on Carpenter’s originality and your own spare time. ??