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James Ellroy

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"There has never been a writer like James Ellroy." (Telegraph). Los Angeles, December 6, 1941. Last...

Cocaine

Shaun Whiteside, Gianrico Carofiglio, Massimo Carlotto and Giancarlo De Cataldo

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Book

In Carlotto's The Campagna Trail, Inspector Campagna uses an old friendship with notorious drug...

Jack Reacher (2012)

6.9 (14 Ratings) Rate It

Movie

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a man drives a van into a parking garage across the Allegheny River...

JackReacher LeeChild Triller

Awix (3310 KP) rated Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) in Movies

Jul 2, 2020

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

1976 | Action, Crime, Thriller

7.9

(25 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

'Why would someone shoot at a police station?' John Carpenter's exemplary action exploitation movie is set in mid-70s Los Angeles but is basically a mash-up of a western and a zombie movie. Two convicts, a secretary and a highway patrol officer find themselves besieged in a soon-to-be-derelict police precinct by hordes of psychopathic street gang members.

One of those examples of a virtually perfect movie: an incredibly economical script with immaculate storytelling is brought to the screen with immensely charismatic performances by the three leads (you watch it now and it's genuinely baffling that none of them had more substantial movie careers). Also a fascinating mixture of old-style and new Hollywood - scenes pastiching the style of Howard Hawks movies sit alongside genuinely provocative moments like the ice cream scene. Overall, though, just a tremendously enjoyable action film, and exhibit A for the case that John Carpenter did his career backwards.