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Carpenter's film ran on his own simple, wire–taut synthesizer theme; Richet drowns the action in what sounds like a three–car pile–up of orchestral suspense soundtracks, and he wraps it up with a deafening rap song in which the singers praise the movie, singing lines like, "Wow! What a conclusion!" Cinematographer Robert Gantz seems to think he's solely responsible for creating a sense of excitement, jerking the camera around so wildly that we're left dizzy and disoriented. Carpenter wrote, directed, edited, and scored his Assault; Richet clearly needed a lot help for his.

Kudos to the cast for making the most of it. Hawke fully commits to the poorly written role of Roenick, a cop sinking into sarcasm and regret after losing his partners in a drug bust. It's been amazing to see that timid youngster from Dead Poets Society grow up to become Training Day's tough trainee and Before Sunset's philosophical romantic. Here, Hawke makes some awful dialogue sound pretty good, and he's convincing in his desperate attempts to improvise order in the midst of chaos.

Brian Dennehy plays a cop whose doesn't like working with crooks

Brian Dennehy turns up as Jasper, an "old school" cop on the verge of retirement. Jasper's disgust at having to join forces with a cop killer becomes the film's most volatile element. (But how many times does the script require him to say "scumbag"? I lost count.)

The crooks—both the hunted and the hunters—are well–chosen too. Laurence Fishburne smolders as Bishop, the crime boss in handcuffs. And John Leguizamo is memorably zany as Beck, a nervous junkie with a steady supply of punchlines. (A cop says, "Your eyes are red; are you stoned?" Beck snaps back, "Your eyes are glazed; you been eatin' donuts?") Outside the precinct walls, all Gabriel Byrne gets to do is scowl, playing the cold–hearted chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Squad, Marcus Duvall.

The poor ladies trapped inside serve as little more than sex objects. Drea de Matteo of TV's Joey is Iris, who rambles on incessantly about her sex life. Her big scene arrives when she partners with Bishop and his language of violence turns out to be her idea of foreplay. Lovely.

Maria Bello plays Roenick's therapist, who stops by for a late–night session on her way to a New Year's Eve party. How convenient—she's established as a smart lady, but when the action gets going she'll strip down to her party dress. And of course, it turns out that therapists are obsessive–compulsives themselves, boosting their egos by advising neurotic cops. Bello, a fine actress, is reduced to shivering in the corner, vulnerable and lost, while the audience wonders what happened to the winter coat she was wearing when she came in.

Thus, it seems our heroes are only slightly less despicable than the villains. This movie's idea of a courageous moral stand is Roenick's vow that, when this is over, he "can't let a murderer walk out of here." Like a stepstool in a deep pit, that's as good as moral high ground gets in this film, folks.

John Leguizamo wielding this film's prop of choice—a big gun

It's troubling to see a film so willingly whipping the audience into a frenzy by casting cops as bad guys. In fact, the whole film might have been crafted to exploit current anti–government sympathies. Where Carpenter insists his original Assault was "apolitical," Richet's film easily reads as a crude indictment of the current administration.

Think about it: The authorities tolerate the existence of a warlord because he serves their purposes. But when they realize he is capable of implicating them in some shady dealings of their own, they manipulate the media and close in to eliminate him, painting themselves as heroes ridding the world of a tyrant while they cover their bloody tracks. Bishop describes Duvall as "one of those nervous God fearin' types." Peering out at the encroaching police, Beck quips, "Government thugs abusing their authority again? I feel real safe, man."

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