JOHN Carpenter's 1976 feature Assault On Precinct 13, a hyper-violent thriller inspired by Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo, is a bloodthirsty cult classic, distinguished by escalating tension, gallows humour and Carpenter's unsettling score.

In this modern day remake, or rather update, director Jean-Frangois Richet and screenwriter James DeMonaco place the emphasis much more firmly on action.

The simple good versus evil premise of Carpenter's film has also been replaced with a far more convoluted gang war between cops, their corrupt fellow officers and a motley crew of reprobates.

Officer Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke) and his colleagues, retiring veteran O'Shea (Brian Dennehy) and sex-obsessed secretary Iris (Drea De Matteo), are left in charge of Detroit police station Precinct 13.

It's New Year's Eve, a blizzard is raging outside and by the time midnight strikes, Roenick and Co will be preparing to shut the dilapidated building for good.

Before the cops can begin their celebrations, the horrific weather conditions force a prison bus to stop overnight at Precinct 13, where the guards and their four prisoners wait out the storm.

Roenick is far from happy, especially since one of the prisoners is vicious crime lord Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne), who was recently arrested in a sting run by Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne) from the Organised Crime and Racketeering Squad.

As the new year approaches, two masked gun men burst into the building, only to be beaten back by Roenick's quick thinking.

Heavily armed assailants begin to surround the building and it becomes clear that to survive the onslaught, Roenick will need to trust the very people he has been trained to put behind bars.

Assault On Precinct 13 is a passable facsimile of Carpenter's classic, attaining at least some of the thrills and tension.

Much of the excitement is a result of Richet's energetic camerawork and a couple of nice shocks. The body count is incredibly high - most of the actors you expect to survive don't.

Characters are two-dimensional to say the least - Roenick is the good guy wrestling with bad memories, Maria Bello's visiting shrink is just as screwed up as her patients - and the dialogue sounds forced.

Plus the claustrophobia of the station house setting is unexpectedly abandoned for a limp, outdoors finale.

Hawke and Fishburne bring a touch of Hollywood pizzazz to what is essentially a B-grade siege flick and Byrne threatens to camp it up from the sidelines.

Rating: 5/10