‘2019: After The Fall of New York’ or — When Hollywood Rips Off Italian B-Movies… For a Change!

Let’s get this out the way straight off the bat: I like ‘Escape From New York’ (1981), okay. It’s stylish and hugely influential. But, as I’ve stated a few times, action-packed it is not. Carpenter’s movie is about atmosphere, tension and a coherent vision but the film’s a slow-burn. Sergio Martino’s ‘2019: After The Fall of New York’ (1983) on the other hand might not have the coherent vision, or a coherent anything for that matter, but it sure has the action. A lot of action!

Taking its cues not just from Carpenter’s Snake Plissken but also Mad Max, Planet of The Apes, Blade Runner and Death Race 2000, ‘2019: After The Fall of New York’ is set in a dystopian future and tells the story of Parsifal who is sent to New York to bring back the last fertile woman on Earth who is key to humanity’s surviv… er.. as a human child hasn’t been born in fifteen years due to global wide infertility. Hmmm… sorry, just having slight déjà vu.

Anyway, once Parsifal has the fertile woman he must take her to an organisation dedicated to curing infertility and starting the human race anew… er… hmmm… this IS sounding familiar… even though armed groups are trying to stop them as they travel through ravaged wastelands. Evading the military, Parsifal and his group struggle to get the women to freedom, even at the expense of their own lives as…

Okay. STOP THE REVIEW!!!!!!

This is ‘Children of Men’! Seriously, this is exactly, beat for beat, ‘Children of Men’, right? Did P.D. James just copy this completely, line for line? Am I getting worked-up and defensive about this? You bet your Italian B-movie ass I am, because if Italian exploitation cinema can come in for so much stick for ripping off other movies and ideas then it should work both ways and Alfonso Cuaron should be outed for the stealing hack he is! (*) I’m not kidding. Sure, let’s slag off Martino for cribbing left, right and centre from Hollywood but when it’s the other way round? Well, yeah — let’s call that out too! Let’s not be cowardly sycophants about this and display double-standards just because the bigger filmmakers might be more preening and aloof because they dress their films up in a veneer of pretentious pseudo-intellectualism. We’re happy to say ‘2019’ is an ‘Escape From New York’ rip-off mixed with this and that so why can’t we call ‘Children of Men’ a ‘2019: After The Fall of New York’ rip-off? Which it fucking well is! Italian exploitation fans rise up and let your voices be heard!

And breath…. so back to the film –

So Martino’s film is very stupid, silly and extremely daft. Fortunately it’s also very entertaining and Martino never lets the pacing slacken for a second. Just when the film seems like it might start to drag, lose some steam or go off the boil, Martino blasts us with something either insanely stupid, violently idiotic, idiotically violence or, more often than not, a combination of all three. It’s awesome! There’s also no shortage of gruesome kills including a particularly great eye-gouging sequence that comes out of nowhere and demonstrates Martino’s skill at knowing how to punctuate his movies at just the right moment. His timing is spot-on and rather deft.

The film also has Martino’s typical “so-bad-it’s-genius” dialogue at its inadvertently hilariously hyperbolic best with lines such as -

“That thing back there was a cyborg! Half man, half robot! Funny thing is, I didn’t know what it was until I made love to him.”

or

“It’s not his fault he isn’t a child.”

and

“They got away, with the help of a dwarf and another infiltrator.”

The acting is what you would expect ranging from the serviceable to the inept although there are some great turns to be found here, especially Anna Kanakis as Eurac Officer Ania and George Eastman as Big Ape has one of the greatest entrances I’ve seen in ages as well delivering a performance that has to be seen to be believed.

‘2019: After The Fall of New York’ is not perfect by any means but it is another awesome entry in Martino’s filmography and if you’re an Italian B-movie fan then there’s loads to enjoy here. But (and I’m not going to let this go) if ‘Children of Men’ can be held up as a post-apocalyptic masterpiece due to its setting, subject matter and theme then so should ‘2019’… especially as it got there first and is, therefore, more original. Does this make it the superior movie? Fuck no! But it’s certainly more fun and if Cuaron’s film can be hailed as a masterpiece then so, by default, shouldn’t this?

(*) For the record Alfonso Cuaron is not a stealing hack but actually a very good director… but he should have given Gastaldi, Martino and Rossini a story credit. Justice must be served.

(**) Since publishing this review it has been brought to my attention that both films heavily feature Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ as a backdrop, which they do. The evidence is now indisputable.