Couple the idea of New York as a maximum security prison with Kurt Russell's hard-bitten performance as one-eyed outlaw Snake Plissken and you've got another one of John Carpenter's contemporary classics. Nobody gets out of New York alive, it would seem; even the President of the United States... unless Plissken can haul his fat out of the fire. En route to the Chief Executive ("President of what?" Plissken asks at one point), there are downed planes and starving crazies who live in the sewers and old acquaintances hiding out in libraries and The Duke of New York (Isaac Hayes), whose army of ne'er do wells must be contended with. All within the allotted time: Plissken is literally a ticking time bomb, thanks to duplicitous Lee Van Cleef as the commander of the United States Police Force. For all its dark doings, however, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is also infused with an often subtle black humor that helps keep it from devolving into the kind of lackluster action film that features stars who can't act; Russell as Plissken is also- surprise- vulnerable, and thence more real, than most action leads. One can't help but sympathize with his character. (And one can't help but think back to ELVIS, the amazing boob-tube biography directed by Carpenter with Russell in the lead: like ELVIS, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK delivers on an emotional level. One can't ask for more than that.)