Escape from New York (1981)

  This is a classic John Carpenter film.  I don't know why I don't own it.  Maybe I'm waiting for a boxed set.  For those of you who haven't been introduced to the awesomeness that is Escape from New York, here's the plot:

It's the "future" in 1997.  Crime has exploded out of control to the point where there is only one prison in the US, the island of Manhattan.  Yep, we've cleared everyone out, put up a 50 ft wall, and mined all the bridges and tunnels out.  Now we don't even have to have guards, we just throw everybody in there and let them have their own society.  Everything works fine and dandy until Air Force One gets hijacked and crashes into the middle of downtown.

Lee Van Cleef (The Bad from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) is the police commissioner who recruits Kurt Russell's S.D. "Snake" Plissken on a mission to rescue President Donald Pleasance.

Side note:  No fucking way we'd ever elect Donald Pleasance.  He's like 5'5", chubby, and bald.

He has just under 24 hours to recover the President before he misses a big peace conference, thereby dooming the free world.  He gets into the city on a glider and meets Ernest Borgnine, a cabby who claims to have been operating in the city for 30 years.  Which either means that the government walled Manhattan without evacuating the inhabitants or made it voluntary to live in a super-max.  Anyway, Cabby takes Snake to see The Brain who knows where the Prez is being held.  The bad news is that Donald Pleasance is the prisoner of The Duke of New York, Isaac Hayes.

I didn't notice this the first time I saw the movie, but The Duke's main henchmen are named Rehme, Romero, and Cronenberg.  Robert Rehme is a producer and George Romero and David Cronenberg are both directors.  Carpenter loves putting little wordplays and references in his movies.  Just look at They Live with the Frank Armitage gag.

Anyway, Snake kicks some serious ass and a lot of people die.  It's awesome.  Apparently, this was the role that transitioned Kurt Russell from fresh-faced Disney star to action hero.  Oh, that's right, Kurt Russell was the voice of the bloodhound Copper from The Fox and the Hound.  I shit you not.

If you need more proof of how awesome this movie is, I point you to this article from Cracked.com.