«Escape from L.A.»

Georges Corraface as Cuervo Jones.
Also starring: Kurt Russell, Steve Buscemi, A.J. Langer, Stacey Keach, Cliff Robertson, Peter Fonda, Pam Grier, Valeria Golino.
Directed by: John Carpenter.
Produced by: Debra Hill, Kurt Russell.
Distributed by: Paramount.
Date:1996

Georges Corraface plays Cuervo Jones, the undisputed and feared ruler of a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles in “John Carpenter’s Escape from L.A.” Georges draws on his Mediterranean roots to give a strong Third World flavor to this false revolutionary figure, nemesis to Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell).

The story: It’s the year 2013, and the City of Angels is now hell on Earth, all but destroyed, and turned into an island by a 9.6 Richter-scale earthquake in 1998. It has become the ideal dumping ground for criminals and anyone deemed not confirming to the rigid dictates of the fascist regime of the U.S. President for Life (Cliff Robertson).

The President’s unhappy, idealistic daughter Utopia (A.J. Langer), attracted to Cuervo Jones through a virtual reality message, steals a top-secret little black box containing a remote control which enables the user to switch off any source of energy; it can potentially destroy the world. She takes it to this latter-day Che Guevara impersonator. With little time and few options, the President and his cohorts maneuver the legendary one-eyed, leather-clad Snake Plissken into recovering the black box and Utopia in just ten hours – or die for lack of the antidote from a chemically-engineerd virus injected into him.

In this sequel to John Carpenter’s hit “Escape from New York”, there are no “good guys”, Georges explains, and Snake is himself an outlaw. It is a thriller laced with humor and social comment on the emerging atmosphere of paranoia prevelant in the United States, which by 2013 is caught between the fascist Moral Majority and the anarchistic Liberals.

“The quality of cynicism attracted me to the script,” Georges explains, adding that he doesn’t subscribe to the anaestheticized version of “political correctness”. Georges landed this role after what he describes as an up-beat, ebullient and exhilirating meeting in Los Angeles with Carpenter and Russell. Carpenter, he says is easy to talk to – “you can come up with suggestions – and the filming took place in a relaxed atmosphere despite the pressures of a $50 million budget and 70 nights of shooting.