Have you ever watched a movie about the so-called future, but made years ago, with its events taking place in a time in which you currently live?  People often point this out with Back to the Future Part II (1989), with its prediction of my beloved Chicago Cubs winning the World Series in 2015.  The reason this is so remembered is because the filmmakers almost got this right, though the team ended up champions in 2016.  That is one of the few happier Hollywood predictions of times yet to come.  Most of the prognostications are of doom, showing a post-apocalyptic world of some form that is the result of human error.  While one needs to be aware of how our actions will impact ourselves and others moving forward, it does little good to fret over what might come to pass.  As Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz) said in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980), “Always in motion is the future.”  As much as I love my favorite movie, my Faith informs me more concretely on such matters.  By and large, tomorrow is out of my hands and in those of God.  If I am a good person now, following His Word, then what will happen will take care of itself.  Because of this, I can watch a film like Escape from New York (1981) and not worry too much about such a scenario as you are about to read coming to pass.  At the same time, it is a good idea to pray that we never get to that level as a society.

The kind of world I am describing is spelled out in a few words at the start of Escape from New York.  For whatever reason, in 1988 crime across the United States spikes by 400 percent.  In response, the government makes Manhattan into a prison colony.  All criminals, regardless of their offense, are sent there to die.  It is now 1997, and the current American president, John Harker (Donald Pleasence), is flying over the city in Air Force One.  As they approach, the prison’s guard base picks up a transmission from the presidential conveyance stating that the plane has been hijacked.  The president is put into a special escape capsule, carrying with him a briefcase containing sensitive documents that he had been about to present at a meeting with the leaders of China and the Soviet Union.  The warden, Police Commissioner Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef), takes a few of the guards to where the module has crash landed, but they find it empty with no sign of President Harker.  While there, Commissioner Hauk is greeted by a strange man named Romero (Frank Doubleday), a close associate of the most powerful inmate in the jail, a man calling himself “The Duke,” (Isaac Hayes).  Romero threaten the guards that if they do not back away, The Duke and his minions will kill President Harker.  To show they are serious, Romero displays a severed finger with a ring sporting the seal of the Office of the President.  Not wanting to endanger the Chief Executive further, Commissioner Hauk and his men depart.  Luckily for Commissioner Hauk, a potential solution has just arrived at their correctional facility in the form of S. D. Bob “Snake” Plissken (Kurt Russell). Though he had once been a special forces operative with the United States military, his scarred visage and eye patch bely his shady doings since leaving the armed forces.  In exchange for wiping his record clean, Snake is to get into New York City, find President Harker, and get out in the space of twenty-four hours.  The deadline is key because the conference President Harker was enroute to, so we are told, is supposed to save the world.  Or the documents he is carrying is supposed to do that?  Being a savior matters little to the likely non-Christian Snake.  Still, as a failsafe should he decide to get away in the vehicle he is given to make it across the Hudson River, Commissioner Hauk has a bomb implanted in Snake’s body to synchronize with the end of that day.  Seeing little alternative, Snake complies, getting a few electronic gadgets to track him and the president.  Since Manhattan is in a state of anarchy, it should be little surprise that practically nothing unfolds as he would wish.  He discovers soon enough that the tracking device attached to President Harker has been removed and put on another person.  As such, it is time for Snake to do things the old-fashioned way: asking around.  The first person to render assistance is a man going by “Cabbie,” (Ernest Borgnine).  Somehow, he has managed to continue driving a taxi in this chaotic urban landscape.  More importantly, he recognizes Snake.  Cabbie takes Snake to another sobriquet-ed individual, Brain (Harry Dean Stanton).  Brain turns out to be Harold Hellman, a former associate of Snake’s.  As Brain’s nickname might suggest, he creates things for The Duke.  Despite their being little love lost between Brain and Snake, the inventor agrees to take the mercenary to where President Harker is being held.  Unfortunately, Brain plays both sides until the end, and thus Snake is overwhelmed and captured during his first rescue attempt.  While The Duke forces Snake to fight a large man for sport in true super villain fashion, Brain and his assistant/lover, Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau), manage to free President Harker.  When word gets around that the president has escaped, any entertainment Snake had been providing is quickly forgotten.  This gives Snake the opportunity to get to where Brain and Maggie take President Harker.  The vehicle in which Snake arrived is destroyed, but Cabbie happens along and they all make a mad dash for the 69^th Street Bridge with The Duke chasing them to the end.  Snake and President Harker are the only ones to make it to safety.  President Harker is blandly grateful, and as revenge, Snake destroys the precious tape that nearly cost his life.  The end.

Never mind that the one thing we had been told about that tape throughout Escape from New York is that it contains information that could save the world.  Clearly, Snake does not care about this fact.  His nonchalance is to be expected, though it contrasts with an earlier moment when he accuses Commissioner Hauk of having no compassion.  Indeed, you will find little of that emotion in this violent film, which makes it hard for a Catholic reviewer to enjoy.  As odd as it might seem, however, it made me thankful that our prison system has not reached this level of brutality, and hopefully never will.  What should also be noted is that to visit those incarcerated is considered by the Catholic Church to be a corporal act of mercy.  Doing so is charitable, and in this case it works for our benefit and for those behind bars.  Any time we act from a place of charity, which is what the Church also calls love, we imitate Jesus and this gets us farther along the path to Heaven.  That is no exaggeration, either.  In Matthew 25:36, Jesus described those fit for His Father’s Kingdom as being those who visited Him while imprisoned.  This is not to say that the Messiah ever committed a crime, though He was certainly punished like a criminal.  What His words speak to is the reason we have jail in the first place. What can be lacking for those in such situations is a sense of hope, which is a key component to Faith.  These are also ideas that are conspicuously absent from the New York City of today’s film, and that is why I pray we never reach such a level of depravity.  Incarceration is meant to be reformatory and remedial, not purely punitive as we see in the movie.  This is why it is vitally important that we give those who have erred by society’s standards something to look forward to, and why the Church makes it a ministry of visiting convicts.  Besides, God gives all of us a second chance, so why can we not do the same for all our fellow human beings?

What stands out about Escape from New York, aside from the alternative 1997, is its cheesiness.  It is violent and there is brief nudity, and it is a little corny.  Some might refer to it as a cult classic, but I am not sure I put it in that category.  It is little remembered today, and it should probably be left that way.