Assault on Precinct 13 is a 1976 American action-thriller film written and directed by John Carpenter. It stars Austin Stoker as a police officer who defends a defunct precinct against an attack by a relentless criminal gang, along with Darwin Joston as a convicted murderer who helps him. Laurie Zimmer and Tony Burton co-star as other defenders of the precinct. The story was inspired by the Howard Hawks western film Rio Bravo and the George A. Romero horror film Night of the Living Dead. Upon original release the film was met with mixed reviews and unimpressive box-office returns in the... United States, but it won critical and popular acclaim in Europe. It gained a considerable cult following and was later re-evaluated as one of the best action films of its era. A remake appeared in 2005, directed by Jean-François Richet and starring Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne. The story takes place on a Saturday in Anderson, a crime-infested ghetto in South Central Los Angeles. Members of a local gang, called 'Street Thunder', have recently stolen a large number of automatic rifles and pistols.
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