Escape From LA

Science Fiction Action/Adventure/Satire – 1996, R. Snake Pliskin is blackmailed into going into a futuristic, post-Big One, LA, now an island penal colony, to rescue a remote control for a weapon that can destroy the world’s technology. The reactionary President’s daughter, Utopia, has hijacked Air Force 3 and the black box and gone to LA to join her idol, revolutionary Cuervo Jones (a Che Guevara look-alike). Pliskin arrives and has a long series of adventures and encounters – all of which are either very violent or hilarious (like surfing a Tsunami down what was once Wilshire Blvd.). The President orders his daughter killed (!), but the only slightly moral Pliskin rescues her and, in the end, himself uses the weapon to destroy the world’s technology, leaving it to start over, hopefully for a better future.

VIOLENCE/SCARINESS: Tongue-in-cheek violence throughout but with surprisingly little blood. While the film is full of shooting and fighting, the ultimate test is a basketball game! Pliskin’s only friend is killed senselessly in the future equivalent of a drive-by shooting.
CRIMES: Too numerous to count.

MORALS, ISSUES & VALUES: This futuristic world is a “theocracy,” where the President serves for life, and where alcohol, swearing, tobacco, drugs, unmarried sex and red meat are banned. All religions except Christianity are also outlawed (though the access code to the super-weapon is “666”). Anyone who doesn’t conform to “American” values forfeits citizenship and is deported to LA. The government uses blackmail and the President is a religiously deranged murderous psychotic (who orders the death of his “lost” daughter). Pliskin bends the rules to his own advantage – just like the government. Pliskin bends the rules to his own advantage – just like the government. Pliskin wears cowboy clothing and gun holsters. Yet having been infected with what he thinks is a deadly virus, Pliskin’s motivations are strictly self-preservation and in no way reflect any ethics or morality.
SEXUALITY & GENDER ISSUES: Single parent family (the President of the U.S.). Most of the women are either prison guards or (in LA) prostitutes. Of the two sympathetic female roles, one is a transsexual and the other is in LA because she is a Muslim.

SUBSTANCES: Alcohol, tobacco and drugs have been outlawed on the mainland but flourish in LA.

COMMENTS: This is a cardboard-fun adventure story wrapped around a sharp satire that takes both the political right and left to task through exaggeration. The result is simultaneously hilarious and serious social criticism. It features some of the best – and some of the worst – special effects, stunts, texture and set dressing in recent films. The end of the film, with the destruction of the world’s technology, keys directly into the apocalyptic and millenarian feelings that are beginning to rise and are certain to continue to the end of the century. There will be many films in which a good portion of the world will be destroyed (as in Independence Day) and we will be given a chance to start again.
STARRING: Kurt Russell, Stacy Keach, Steve Buscemi, Cliff Robertson, Valeria Golino, Peter Fonda, Michelle Forbes, A. J. Langer, George Corraface, Pam Grier, Robert Carradine, Bruce Campbell, Paul Bartel.

ALTERNATES: Similar action/adventure films are “Escape from New York,” “RoboCop,” “Wing Commander,” and “Starship Troopers.”