Things have not gone well for police Captain Ethan Hawke and they’re about to get a whole lot worse. He has issues, considers himself responsible for the death of a colleague and is now supervising a soon-to-be demolished precinct. It’s New Years Eve and in the middle of a blizzard, he is given an unwelcome charge – a cop-killing gangster called Bishop (Laurence Fishburne). Unfortunately for all, someone wants Bishop dead and that someone is rogue cop Duvall (Gabriel Byrne). Worse, Duvall doesn’t care who he takes with him. Thus begins the assault on Precinct 13, a cat and mouse game of cops, cops and robbers each trying to outwit the other and not get killed in the process. Cue an Alamo-styled shoot out in which the hold is not so strong (it being ready for demolition) and mighty short on supplies and manpower. Assault on Precinct 13 is an unsurprising remake of John Carpenter’s 1976 original, which adds little that is new. However, it is an agreeable reworking with more pluses than minuses, and one that thrills when it’s supposed to. Hawke (riveting as a junkie in the jittery, pre-credit homage) has enough charisma to carry the film, ably supported by a menacing Fishburne and other fidgety characters; John Leguizamo, Maria Bello and Ja Rule among them. What it may lack in originality, Assault on Precinct 13 makes up for in the chemistry between a self-medicating Hawke and cucumber-cool Fishburne. And as their relationship inevitably grows, they successfully tiptoe around trite to carry the film over the line. This is the kind of B-Grade action of which they simply don’t make enough. // COLIN FRASER