Escape from L.A. (stylized on-screen as John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.) is a 1996 American post-apocalyptic action film co-written, co-scored, and directed by John Carpenter, co-written and produced by Debra Hill and Kurt Russell, with Russell reprising his role as Snake Plissken. A sequel to Escape from New York (1981), the film co-stars Steve Buscemi, Stacy Keach, Bruce Campbell, Peter Fonda, and Pam Grier. The film, set in a then-near-future world of 2013, sees the United States ruled by a theocratic President for life. Los Angeles, after an earthquake severed the city from the mainland, has been constructed as a prison-like island. When the president's daughter steals the remote of a new superweapon and escapes to L.A., Plissken is recruited to retrieve the remote in exchange for the waiving of his upcoming deportation. Released on August 9, 1996, Escape from L.A. received mixed reviews and was a box office failure.
Plot In 2000, a massive earthquake strikes the city of L.A., cutting it off from the mainland as the San Fernando Valley floods. Declaring that God is punishing L.A. for its sins, a theocratic presidential candidate wins election to a lifetime term of office. He orders the United States capital relocated from D.C. to his hometown of Lynchburg. He enacts a series of strict morality laws, banning such things as smoking, alcohol, drugs, premarital sex, firearms, profanity, and red meat. Violators are given a choice between loss of U.S. citizenship and permanent deportation to the new L.A. Island, or repentance and death by electrocution. Escape from the island is made impossible due to a containment wall erected along the mainland shore and a heavy federal police presence monitoring the area. By 2013, the U.S. has developed a superweapon known as the "Sword of Damocles," a satellite system capable of targeting electronic devices anywhere in the world and rendering them useless. The president intends to use it to dominate the world by rendering hostile nations unable to function. His daughter Utopia steals the remote control for the system and escapes to L.A. to deliver it to Cuervo Jones, a Peruvian Shining Path revolutionary. Cuervo has marshaled an invasion force of third world nations and is planning to attack the U.S. Facing deportation for a series of crimes, Snake Plissken is offered a chance to earn a pardon by traveling to L.A. and recovering the remote, a task that a previous rescue team failed to accomplish. To force his compliance, the president has one of his officers infect Snake with a virus that will kill him within ten hours and promises that he will receive the cure upon completing the mission. The president is not concerned with Utopia's safety, regarding her as a traitor. Snake is issued equipment and sent to L.A. in a one-man submarine. As he explores the island, he meets "Map to the Stars" Eddie, a swindler who sells interactive tours and is one of Cuervo's associates. Along the way, Snake is helped by Pipeline, a surfing enthusiast; Taslima, a woman deported for her Muslim faith who is killed during a shootout involving a gang of Asian kids; and Hershe Las Palmas (formerly Carjack Malone), a trans woman and past criminal associate of Snake's. Eddie captures Snake and turns him over to Cuervo, who uses the Sword of Damocles to shut down Lynchburg in retaliation for Snake's presence. Cuervo threatens to inflict the same fate on the rest of the U.S. unless his demands are met. Snake escapes and teams up with Hershe and her soldiers. The group travels by glider to the invasion staging area, at the "Happy Kingdom" in Anaheim. During a fight against Cuervo's troops, Snake takes the remote, and Eddie alters one of the units he sells for his tours to match it. Snake, Eddie, Utopia, Hershe, and a group of Hershe's soldiers escape the island in a helicopter. Eddie shoots Cuervo, who fires a rocket launcher and hits the helicopter before dying. Hershe and her men are incinerated, Eddie jumps clear at liftoff, and Snake and Utopia do the same over the mainland and leave the helicopter to crash once Snake alerts the president to their approach. At the crash site, the president and his officers find that both Snake and Utopia are carrying remotes and take the one held by Utopia (slipped into her pocket without her noticing), thinking that Snake has switched them. As Utopia is taken to the electric chair, Snake learns that the virus infecting him only causes a severe case of influenza that subsides within hours. The president tries to use Utopia's remote to neutralize an invasion force threatening Florida, but it only plays a recorded introduction to one of Eddie's tours. Furious, the president orders his officers to kill Snake on the spot, but he proves to be only a hologram projected from a miniature camera that had been issued to him. Disgusted at the world's never-ending class warfare, he programs the real remote and triggers every satellite in the Sword of Damocles system, deactivating all technology on Earth and saving Utopia from electrocution as the power fails. Snake tosses the now-useless camera aside and lights a cigarette, then blows out the match and mutters, "Welcome to the human race."
Cast
Production
Escape from L.A. was in development for over 10 years. In 1987, screenwriter Coleman Luck was commissioned to write a screenplay for the film with Dino De Laurentiis's company producing, which John Carpenter later described as being "too light, too campy". Carpenter stated one of the reasons it took so long to develop a sequel was because of his negative views on sequels, especially in regards to the ones that followed on from Halloween. Eventually, Carpenter and Kurt Russell got together to write with their long-time collaborator Debra Hill with Russell instigating the process as he took inspiration from contemporary events in Los Angeles such as the 1994 Northridge earthquake and the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Carpenter insists that Russell's persistence allowed the film to be made, since "Snake Plissken was a character he loved and wanted to play again." Carpenter credited that same enthusiasm with motivating Russell's work on the script, declaring "I used his passion to do the movie to get him to write more".
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