Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

aneurysms Please part 2! Lets crowd fund this! As soon as possible!

capone666 Streets of FireThe best thing about being judge, jury and executioner is the three paychecks.Mind you, the merc in this action-musical is getting revenge pro bono.The head of a local gang (Willem Dafoe) kidnaps the singer (Diane Lane) of a new wave band at the exact time her solider-of-fortune ex-boyfriend (Michael Paré) returns home.To retrieve her, he must team with her new boyfriend (Rick Moranis) and another mercenary (Amy Madigan). But freeing the songstress is only half of the battle as a hammer fight is the only conclusion.A stylish blend of 1950s aesthetic and 1980s music, this cult hit from the ladder time period is in a class of its own. But a notable soundtrack and an indistinct era isn't enough to save the dull lead or the script's comic-bookish narrative.Furthermore, if you did blend the '50s with the '80s you would get McCarthyists with feathered bangs.Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

MisterWhiplash How do I describe this movie? It's kind of like Walter Hill made his own Sin City in the early/mid 80's, but also as a rock and roll (semi) musical with throwbacks to the 1950's while at the same time still being very, very 80's. Those throwbacks are in the music somewhat too via a score by Ry Cooder (and keep in mind this was the same year he also scored Paris, Texas, just think about the versatility for that), and of course with the biker imagery and rockabilly aesthetic. And the movie has quite the cast - Diane Lane as a Pat Benatar-ish singer in one of her early roles; Rick Moranis as the jerkish manager (and Lane's character's boyfriend, for reasons); Willem Dafoe as... hell, it's Williem Dafoe as a villain in the 80's, isn't it a full price ticket already? I think the strongest thing about this is Hill's vision as a director. This is clearly a personal movie for him, though it also acts as like the B-side to the A-side of The Warriors: that movie was better put together and more cohesive (the mission at the core was something to follow easier as it was over a night), but they both come from the same wild comic book look and feel. The locations this is set in (somewhat in Chicago and somewhat in Los Angeles) are designed to be in the past and the future, but it's to the point where you can't distinguish one from the other. That's good, and it makes it into this wonderful alternate reality where pop culture tropes, from the diner to the rock club to the down and dirty biker bar with the Zoot-Suit-Riot type of dance to the way everyone dresses, it makes for a visually unique spectacle. Oh, and Hill is solid here at directing action and violence, which you'd expect coming from the 79 movie and others he's done.Even the star, Michael Pare as Tom Cody(and don't worry you won't forget that name the number of times its said, first and last name), feels like he's ripped from the pages not from comics of the 80's (though maybe there's some Frank Miller scraped off on him unintentionally) but from a pulp comic from the *50's*. So when he has Pare act the way he does here - often with stoic looks and without really doing much in the way of, you know, anything but declarative statements and orders - I kind of like it because it fits the feel of the whole place. Is it the *best* actor that could've been in the role? No, but he does the best with it that he can.Where it falters is in portions of the script. The first half has a clear trajectory because it involves Tom Cody getting a message from his sister to come back to save his ex-girlfriend (Lane's Ellen Aim) from the clutches of the biker Dafoe and his gang to his hometown (he's been away at the army following, I suppose in this world, juvenile delinquency). This part is fun and engaging, albeit with Moranis committing to a role that's obnoxious, and I'm not sure if it's his performance or the character. But once this mission is done the movie kind of flounders on what we can expect to happen: the Dafoe biker will come back to get the girl (and Dafoe is maybe the best part of the movie to be fair so any screen time he gets is welcome), and that Pare and Lane will bicker back and forth with Moranis in the middle. Indeed a lot of the dialog the characters get to say, even Amy Madigan in a well acted tough guy role given to a woman (a nice decision on Hill's part), is rather nasty and just full of mean spirit.Does that make the movie bad? Not all of it, but Streets of Fire is an experience that ends up waxing and waning for me, to the point where in the second half I wondered if it was a *good* movie or more of a guilty pleasure trip into a Hollywood director's headspace where he practically had carte-blanche (post 48 Hours). And along with the flaws in the story there's a reliance on ridiculously fast editing to the point where you realize this is what critics meant at the time when they went after movies with "MTV style editing". And Hill and his editor have a lot of good decisions here, but the montages make it dated in such a way that I was reminded of Purple Rain from the same year, only FASTER!With all this said, I did have fun with Streets of Fire, from Cooder's fantastic score to the performances that worked to the emotional finale that just reaches out and doesn't give a flying f*** about what you think of it going into camp. The logical part of my brain can pick it apart till the cows come home, but as far as it being an experience to soak in all of the full on CINEMATIC tropes it works.

Predrag Hill has created a complete world here. The story takes place in a city that is so huge a wanderer (such as Amy Madigan's or Michael Pare's characters) can pass through a "district" the way an old west drifter would pass through a town (not the only similarity to westerns this movie has). One can drive all night, passing through several of these districts, each with their own distinctive character, without finding the end of it. There is a run-down residential area, a nightlife strip, a spooky industrial area, even a southern style district with racist cops! The character of these districts is expressed everywhere, from the production design to the music to the costumes, so you can really catch the flavor of it. I felt that the costumes especially should be commended (hello, academy), not only because they were well produced and looked good, but also each costume expressed the character of the people wearing them and the district they resided in.The main action of the movie follows the pattern of a less serious version of "The Warriors": our heroes must find their way home against great odds. They must take trains, steal cars, fight cops, and hide from their pursuers. Instead of the run-down griminess of a city on the edge of collapse, however, there is the sense of urgent vibrancy of a thriving culture.The music was phenomenal! It's one of my favorite soundtracks of all time due to it's great range of different styles and time periods of various genres that work incredibly well together (musical cohesiveness?). You have the Broadway-esque Steinem production of Nowhere Fast and Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young. The country pop-rock flavored ballad tune It'll Never Be You. The late Dan Hartman's sadly enough only huge pop/R&B/Motown-like hit I Can Dream About You. The lyrics are astoundingly evocative and hyperbolic...yet identifiable. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend that you pick up this album. If the two Fire, Inc. songs had been written for a stronger movie or even a play, I guarantee they would have taken off.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.