Weston Cage Coppola is a
Russian terrorist taking veterans hostage in this unthrilling micro-budget Die Hard rip-off
Although the title invokes John Carpenter’s 1976 classic Assault on Precinct 13, one of the all-time great pulpy siege movies, this tale of a hostage-taking at a Veterans Administration hospital in Buffalo, NY, is all pulp, no greatness. In fact, the premise is not so much about an assault as an infiltration that one fortuitously skilful character, who just happens to be around at the time, accidentally foils when the bad guys threaten his wife and child’s safety. In other words: Die Hard, but with a teensy budget that appears to have mostly been used on a visual effect that makes the many shots of bullets entering bodies look like puffs of red dust exploding like scarlet glitter bombs. It’s quite distracting in its shabbiness.