History Film / EscapeFromNewYork

* RaceAgainstTheClock: Snake has 24 hours to save the President, or the tiny explosives they injected him with would detonate, open up his jugular veins, and kill him.

* BritainIsOnlyLondon: The title is Escape from New York. However only Manhattan is walled off! Manhattan is obviously the best known of the boroughs, and the center of culture and finance. But it also only makes up about 20% of the city's population. Although the establishing shot does seem to indicate that nobody is living in New Jersey, Brooklyn, Queens or anywhere in the surrounding areas as well.

%%* CoolGuns:
** Snake Plissken uses a MAC-10 with a suppressor (that, surprisingly realistically, stopped working well towards the end of the film, since it was likely a wipe/wet system instead of one with a baffle system).
** He also carries a Model 67, a Stainless Steel version of the Model 15, which seems to never need reloading and comes with a scope. Maggie makes use of it at various points in the film, with Snake giving it to her to make her Last Stand against the Duke. Hauk is briefly seen doing a brass check on a Model 10 snubnose before he meets Snake as well.
** The guards carry M16s and the President uses one to take down the Duke. For some reason, the handguards have been removed from all of them.

** The glider computer's green wireframe graphics were too expensive to do back then, so the model of Manhattan made for different scenes in the movie was painted black, outlined with green reflective tape and filmed. Truly, the past is another country.

* {{Backseat Driver}}: Maggie critiques Brain's choice of route when driving from the Library to The Duke's HQ.

* CombatPragmatist: Snake. For example, when surrounded, he shoots at some steam pipes in order to create an opening for everyone to escape.

* EmbarrassingFirstName: Brain hates being called by his actual name, Harold.

* HellBentForLeather: Snake's old worn out leather coat.

* MolotovCocktail: Cabbie lights one and throws it at approaching Crazies. It explodes in front of them, stopping them.

* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Snake decides to humiliate the President and [[spoiler:destroy the nuclear tape]] because he decides that the President isn't worthy of the power.

%%* GutturalGrowler: Snake Plissken, although there's a bit of a Creator/ClintEastwood hiss in there, too.

Has received an Tabletop RPG adaptation as a sourcebook for ''Everyday Heroes'' from Evil Genius Games.

* CoolGuns:

* GutturalGrowler: Snake Plissken, although there's a bit of a Creator/ClintEastwood hiss in there, too.

* FingerInTheMail: Romero taunts the government troops with the kidnapped President's severed finger (complete with a ring with the Presidential Seal).

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The real 69th Street Bridge in New York City was actually [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Central_Railroad_69th_Street_Transfer_Bridge a dock]] and was meant for transferring rail cars across the Hudson, not for automobile traffic as the movie depicts (this may be an example of TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture).

* TheBigRottenApple: By the early 80s, most major American cities had seen anyone who could afford it flee to the [[{{Suburbia}} suburbs]], infrastructure was decaying, cities were bankrupt, and of course crime was out of control. New York, as America's largest and most prominent city, was the ultimate symbol of this urban decay. In the late 70s, the federal government refused to bail the city out. This led many New Yorkers to declare "America has given up on New York." The film takes the situation to its logical conclusion - all of Manhattan's residents have fled, and the island has been turned into a giant penal colony where gangs battle for supremacy.

* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking: Snake smokes through the movie, and actually got the final shot with a PowerWalk and a cigarette.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/efny_4913.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:The original mulleted, eyepatched badass named Snake. No relation to [[VideoGame/MetalGear that other one]].]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/escapefromnewyok.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The original mulleted, eyepatched badass named Snake. No relation to [[VideoGame/MetalGear that other one]].]]

TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture (well, sixteen years, as the film takes place in the year 1997), the President's plane crashes in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity -- specifically Manhattan, which has become a giant penal colony filled with savage gangs that are led by "The Duke of New York" (Music/IsaacHayes). The commissioner of the United States Police Force, Bob Hauk (Creator/LeeVanCleef), is left without any realistic options for a rescue, so he recruits the most badass criminal he can find to get the President out: Snake Plissken (Russell). When Plissken says he wants nothing to do with the mission, Hauk forces Snake into compliance with an ExplosiveLeash -- if Snake doesn't get the President out of New York within a certain amount of time, the leash goes boom and Snake goes with it.

''Escape from New York'' is a cult-classic 1981 action film by the team of director Creator/JohnCarpenter and star Creator/KurtRussell.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/efny_4913.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:The original mulleted, eyepatched badass named Snake. No relation to [[VideoGame/MetalGear that other one]].]]

Released in 1981, ''Escape from New York'' is a cult-classic action film featuring the dream team of director Creator/JohnCarpenter and star Creator/KurtRussell.

* UnexplainedRecovery: Possibly. Though there is never an explanation, nearly every time Snake meets another character for the first time, he is greeted with "I heard you were dead." At one point, he replies "I am," referring to what will happen if he fails his deadline. Apparently, Snake is both famous among the prisoners on the island of New York, and famously dead.

* HollywoodHealing: Averted with the arrow Snake takes to the leg. He limps the rest of the movie and is clearly in pain at times, the rest of the time he's probably going on adrenaline.
* HollywoodSilencer: Averted with Snake's MAC-10 with a colossal silencer - the sound is more like "CHOOM" than "fwip". It's also worth noting that by the time Snake is captured by the Duke, the silencer is no longer effective, as evidenced by the scene where the Duke toys with the president by shooting around him.

* CrossCastRole: One of Snake's first encounters with the inmates is watching some male inmates put on a mocking musical while in drag.

* AllThereInTheScript:
** The original shooting script suggests that Snake has been personally asked by the government for a favor before, partially due to his reputation as a war hero. He indicates this thought to himself during his initial conversation with Hauk. The following scene (as Snake is shown his armaments) also indicates that he's dismissive of the Crazies in New York.
** The screenplay also indicates that the gladiator Snake fights in the arena is named "Slag". The character is never identified by name within the film itself aside from the end credits.

* AKA47: The United States Police use M16's with their handguards removed, presumably to give the rifles an unfamiliar 'futuristic' look, rather than because the police like scorching their hands after a few bursts.

* CoversAlwaysLie: Look at any poster and one of the big things they often show is the head of the decapitated Statue of Liberty lying in the street. In actuality, the statue only appears very briefly in the opening scene (the only moment in the film actually shot in New York), during which it is perfectly intact. Other minor details, such as the location of Snake's tattoo and the weapon he carries, are off-model too.