Assault on Precinct 13

—Overview
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections

*Contains Spoilers*

From the beginning of time, there have been good guys and bad guys. A conflict between good and evil, right and wrong, embodied in people. Innocent girls versus evil stepmothers. Spirited young men versus oppressive rulers. Pre-selected victims versus psychotic killers. Cops versus criminals. FBI versus mobsters. CIA versus terrorists. But sometimes, a story comes along in which that line is not so clear. Sometimes the guy who is supposed to be good is bad. Sometimes the guy who is supposed to be bad is good. And sometimes stereotypical definitions no longer work, labels no longer make sense, and we find ourselves reconsidering who the good and the bad guys actually are.

In Assault on Precinct 13, its story asks both its characters and audiences to consider those very ambiguities. It is the story of fighting to live, fighting to kill, and killing to live. It is a story of death, yet at the same time it is a story of life, its value, its meaning, and what it is really worth.

The movie takes place in a police station less than 24 hours away from being shut down. It is New Years Eve and the remaining staff of Precinct 13 just want to relax and celebrate. Unfortunately for them, they are joined by a bus of prisoners rerouted by a winter storm, quickly followed by snipers who will do anything to kill high-profile prisoner/mobster/cop-killer Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne), and soon after, an army who will stop at nothing short of killing everyone inside once the insiders discover that they are fighting non-other than fellow policemen gone bad.

As New Years’ celebration turns into a fight to live, the movie quickly establishes itself as an action flick. Bullets shout across the screen, windows explode, fire erupts, and close-up shots of single bullet holes directly centered on pale foreheads flash across the screen too many times to count. More than just a mindless action flick, however, the movie brings to life a set of characters who take what is a relatively simple story to another level. Amid explosions and gunshots, each character makes decisions, takes actions, and, in the end, reveals the motives for why they do what they do—for themselves and themselves alone or for others.

Inside and outside the prison, this distinct contrast of motives is brought out through the leaders of their respective groups—Bishop, Sergeant Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke), and Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne). Inside, both Bishop and Roenick fight with courage to save themselves and those around them. When it comes down to it, however, Bishop clearly states that his only motive for keeping others alive is because their guns will help keep him alive. He puts various issues on hold only because he is more interested in saving his own life. And when he no longer needs others for his own benefit, he leaves them without a second thought.

Sergeant Roenick, however, thinks differently. He is still plagued by guilt over the deaths of his undercover team several years ago and clearly cares about their loss. Pushing aside prisoner and police officer labels, he arms everyone so that they can all protect each other. As he fights, he continually puts his life at risk to save others and is pained by each death that occurs. And even as the situation becomes more hopeless than before, as he struggles with ongoing feelings of inability and holds a handful of pills that would allow him to escape it all, he chooses to live and goes back to fight for the lives of those people around him.

Outside the prison, however, both Bishop and Roenick’s will to live is met with Duval’s equal determination to kill, and like Bishop, simply save himself. Sending countless officers in for the kill but never fighting himself, Bishop simply operates by the logic of a twisted game of math—people must die and will die to hide his department’s dealings, and while lives will be lost, they are all worth it to keep him from losing his life to prison and being exposed for who he really is.

Inside the prison, characters land on both sides of the line. One of the cops inside turns out to be working for the outside. Two of the prisoners attempt to grant themselves freedom instead of staying to help defend the others. Another prisoner, however, risks her life to get help. The secretary, who has probably never killed before, fights bravely to defend others. Alex Sabian (Maria Bello), the police psychologist who is too scared to do anything but recite multiplication tables as a sniper points a gun to her head, later volunteers to risk her life by going outside for help. When she again faces a gun to her head and the choice between her life or betraying those inside, she does not even need to recite her multiplication tables, but firmly and without fear refuses to betray those inside.

Confronted with a decision to take the easy way out or face whatever they must do to fight for those around them, both Roenick and Sabian decide to put others’ lives before their own. For Sabian, it is her way of living up to her earlier statement: “If I am going to die, at least I should die gracefully.� For Roenick, it is his way of meeting Sabian’s earlier challenge that, no matter what has happened in the past, he is still responsible for his life and what he chooses to do with it. Through both of their actions, they reflect the power of sacrifice. They reveal the not necessarily beautiful but abundantly compassionate grace sacrifice embodies. And even if just a glimpse, they allow us to see the kind of love that God also showed us when he too gave His life through Jesus so that we might live.

While movies and stories often draw clear pictures of good and bad, as Assault on Precinct 13 reveals, reality is never quite as clear cut. Sometimes even the most respected turn out to be rotten under the surface. Sometimes even our most benevolent actions turn out to be nothing more than self-motivated. And, in almost every case, even on our best days, we each face our own struggles, addictions, and downfalls.

By definition, at least one piece of who we are has marked us flawed, damaged, and bad…cleared of that label by Christ’s death and forgiveness, however, we are left with the choice of who we really want to be. Will we be the ones who only live for ourselves, always trying to save our own lives, working to build up our own image, and never thinking of anyone else? Or instead, will we choose to recognize the potential of the lives we have been given, to see our lives as something much bigger than just ourselves, and to simply strive to not only die gracefully, but to actually live lives of grace while we have the chance?

—Overview
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections

In Good Company

—Overview
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections

In today’s world, it can sometimes be difficult to see life as anything more than numbers—numbers that roll across blue tape at the bottom of television screens, that ping-pong back and forth between bow-tied authorities on the nightly news, that glare at us from status reports, and that appear in the box on the right hand side of our paychecks. Every number translates to dollars. And in this world of numbers and money, everything and everyone in life is reduced to a box we can check or must leave blank—a deduction, an expense, or (ideally) a source of profit or symbol of our success.

For Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid), head of advertising for Sports America magazine, this notion of a world in which numbers rule and money means everything is what he must face as In Good Company begins. His company has been taken over by the corporate giant Globecom, 26-year-old business hotshot Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) is now his boss, and the new rule of the game is synergy—in other words, cross-promoting and teaming-up with every other company owned by Globecom to simply bring the money to Globecom and Globecom alone.

As soon as the takeover occurs, it is clear that everything under the new management is about numbers, about money, about making money, and about making more money. Layoffs are immediate and drastic. Advertising proposals quickly lose all consideration for consumer interests or logical business partnerships, become as ridiculous as awarding pairs of running shoes to crowds of drunken men, and end up as nothing more than lining for the pocketbooks of Globecom executives. And although the motto of synergy is connection, the only connections the new business actually allows to remain are ones between hands reaching into the same pocketbook.

More than just a story about business practices and partnerships, however, In Good Company delves into the values that lie beneath not just the business of economics but within the business and reality of life itself.

The enthusiastic spokesman for the Globecom definition of success, Carter enters the movie with a life that is just as much about creating the right numbers and checking the right boxes as at Globecom itself. At a time in life when many of his contemporaries are still trying to figure out what to do, Carter is already well-established in a career—check. He makes a lot of money—check. He has just bought a Porsche—check. He owns or at least rents a nice home—check. And he even has a wife—check. He has everything he “should� have, does everything he “should� be doing, and is most notably on the positive side of the money line.

The other main character of In Good Company, Dan, however, leads a life that is clearly more than just checking boxes and adding up numbers. Like Carter, Dan has a good job, a house, and a family. Unlike Carter, however, these things are more than just something he does or has because he should or can. His job is not just about making money, but about creating a quality magazine, informing his customers about products that will actually appeal to them, helping businesses advertise to logical consumers, and doing a job that actually means something to him. More than just a symbol of status and worth, Dan’s home is a place to house his family and an asset he is willing to mortgage to allow his daughter to attend the college of her choice. And, more than just people with whom he shares his life, Dan’s colleagues and family are people he actually knows and about whose lives he truly cares.

At the beginning of the movie, Carter and Dan are set up as enemies, as opponents, and as representatives of two very different ways of living life. Barely a half an hour into the movie, however, it is apparent that Carter’s life isn’t all it’s cut out to be. His wife leaves him after less than ten minutes on screen. He crashes his Porsche as he is leaving the dealership. Even in his corner office, Carter drinks gallons of coffee to get through every workday and finds himself with nothing to do on his days off but call long lost friends and organize weekend office meetings. And as the movie unfolds, it is clear that Carter would much rather have what Dan has than have anything he has already gotten for himself.

From the beginning of In Good Company to its end, the theme is clearly about connections. Globecom is all about creating synergetic bonds designed to provide mutual benefits between members of the same body. Carter is initially consumed by a life of bonds with people and things designed to carry him to the top and make him the man he is “meant� to be. Dan, however, meets both Globecom and Carter with a view of connection that is a direct opposite to both. Instead of taking, Dan’s connections give. Instead of demanding, Dan’s connections sacrifice. And instead of seeking to serve and build up himself and himself alone, Dan’s connections aim to serve and support others.

At the end of it all, Dan’s connections win. Carter decides that life lived according to numbers, boxes, and synergetic relationships falls far short of a life in which relationships focus on self sacrifice rather than just oneself. Standing in Dan’s office in one of the last scenes, Carter tells Dan, “Thank you for showing me a few things…No one ever took the time to give me a hard time or teach me anything actually worth learning.� And in these worlds, Carter reveals how much simply giving a bit of oneself to help another can mean.

As a movie, In Good Company is entertaining as well as uplifting. It is well written and well acted. It makes you laugh and makes you smile. And even more, it speaks about real forces and struggles in our lives today. Through Carter as well as Dan’s college-aged daughter, the story puts a hand on the shoulders of every twenty-something and tells them that value isn’t in having an entire life together by 25, but simply in starting on a path towards a life that doesn’t just add up to something but actually means something. Through Dan, the movie reaches out to every person who has been in the real world a few years longer, worked hard, and in some cases, raised a family along the way, and celebrates the sacrifices they have made to help others. And speaking both to younger and older audiences, the story honestly reveals selfishness for the blemish it is and shows how far a little bit of selflessness can go.

In a world where living life and finding our value in it can all too often feel like no more than filling out a tax form, In Good Company is a welcome reminder that the value of our lives is greater than the monetary value of our possessions and accomplishments. As we listen to Carter thank Dan for teaching him a few things, we are reminded of those people who have helped us along the way--our parents, our teachers, our mentors, and most of all, our God, Savior, Father, and Creator who went so far as to sacrifice his only son to clear away our stumbling, who cares enough to give us a hard time that we may come out better on the other side, and who desires to teach us things that really matter so that we may know what value actually is.

As we are shown what the true value of good company actually is, we are inspired to seek more, to realize the value and potential we have within ourselves, and to see our lives and our relationships as more than just a life of numbers and boxes, but as opportunities to “encourage one another to outbursts of love and good deeds� (Hebrews 10:24) and to truly believe in the lives of meaning that are ours to live.

—Overview
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections