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Streets of Fire (1984)

Dir: Walter Hill

Superstar singer Ellen Aim (Diane Lane) is doing a benefit gig in her rundown, hometown, superb when notorious biker gang ‘The Bombers’, led by Raven (Willem Dafoe), kidnap her off the stage and whisk her away to their nightclub lair.

Ellen’s Manager ,and current boyfriend, Billy Fish (Rick Moranis) puts up the money for Ellen’s bad boy/ex con old flame Cody (Michael Pare) to get her back.
With the help of an out of work female Soldier, McCoy (Amy Madigan), Cody and Fish head out to the rough gang area of ‘The Battery’ to get Ellen back….

 

To even have a chance to enjoy Walter Hill’s “Streets of Fire” you have to take the hint given to you right at the very start, when the words “A Rock ‘N‘ Roll Fable“ and “Another time…Another place” appear on-screen.
This is not the World (or society) as we know it, and this is very much a musical/gang banger fairy tale

Mixing the Wild West, 50’s/60’s Rock ‘N’ Roll fashions and social styling and a heavy dose of it’s own, 80’s, time period Hill as director and co-writer (along with Larry Gross) has created a rare beast. A film that is made up of many, many other cinematic and musical aspects but is very much it’s own being. There quite simply, as a whole, is not another movie like this.

Cinematographer Andrew Laszlo (“The Warriors”, “First Blood”) captures the neon lit wet street sets with an expert eye, delivering a film that looks as good as it sounds. Some excellent night time, flame-lit sequences also impress as John Vallone’s Production Design shines.

The soundtrack is hit and miss (with the miss elements being down to songs dating more than anything else) but mostly hit and is an essential element to the movie.
Ellen’s opening concert number, “Nowhere Fast” is actually pretty damn catchy and is edited (by Freeman A. Davies  Michael Ripps ) brilliantly into the arrival of ‘The Bombers’ and her other songs (the last one aside, which is really a slice of cheese too far) fit perfectly and Lane mimes them very well (she never actually sings herself).
We have real life Rockabilly/Blues band “The Blasters” doing a couple of toe-tapping numbers in ‘Torchy’s’, the hideout of ‘The Bombers’, as the androgynous but sexy Marine Jahan (Jennifer Beal’s body double in “Flashdance”) dances and strips on the bar and again they work brilliantly in setting just the right vibe for the unfolding action.

Along the way our heroes also meet up with a Black ‘Do Wop’/Soul group ’The Sorels’ and hitch a lift on their tour bus. As with the rest of the film some soon to be famous faces make an appearance as ‘The Sorels’ are made up of Mykelti Williamson (“Con-Air”). Grand L. Bush (“Die Hard”) and soon to be hip director Robert Townsend (“Hollywood Shuffle”).
The band’s song on the bus (again mimed) is good ‘Do Wop’ ditty and goes with the change of pace of the film at this point, but their end song is another case of ‘too much cheese waiter’.
But it’s Ry Cooder’s (“Paris Texas”, “Southern Comfort”) brilliant slide guitar/drum heavy score that is the real highlight here and as always Walter Hill and Cooder fuse the music and the visuals perfectly (with some excellent editing and jagged, scene change, screen wipes) and two highlights of action and score working hand in hand are the highly effective opening credits as Cody arrives and fights off a gang in his Sister’s (Deborah Van Valkenburgh, “The Warriors”) café and the attack on ‘Torchy’s’ by Cody and McCoy.

Hill can be hit and miss when it comes to action (“Red Heat”, lame “Extreme Prejudice”, excellent) but he does a great job here with the fist fights (and the final confrontation between Cody and Raven with long handled hammers!) being very well executed and the aforementioned attack on ‘The Bombers’ a blazing bit of kinetic action as Cody blasts away with his Winchester rifle at their bike’s gas tanks resulting in a myriad of impressive explosions and stunts.

One of the things you will either love or hate is the dialogue and it’s delivery.

Like most things in the film the dialogue is wildly over the top, but that’s the way it should be. Unintentional, intentional, whatever. It doesn’t matter as long as it works for the film. And it does. But you’ll either dig it or hate it.
Everyone is given an attitude and has a chance to spout some comic strip one-liners.
The antagonism between Fish and McCoy supplies some choice lines and exchanges, like when Cody brings in McCoy and Fish is not pleased; “We’re not taking no skirt along, okay”. It’s cliché, it’s comic strip, and it works.
McCoy can more than hold her own though as far as Fish is concerned; “It’s hard to figure out what makes you more pathetic, the way you talk or the way you dress”.
And when Cody, in Pare’s oft-criticised but actually perfect for the role drawl, states “They always hire bums like me for jobs like this” you just have to smile and go with it.
The screenplay is a huge, boiling stew of hardboiled clichés .

This of course brings up the performances. Again, you will find other reviews (even generally positive ones) rip into the acting, but they quite frankly just don’t get it. Again, whether it’s intentional or Hill and co just found the naturally right people for the roles, the over the top delivery and the lethargic intonation are exactly what this film (and it’s characters) need.
Pare, is cynical, laid back and at the same time pissed off and essays his laconic character to perfection.
Madigan (shockingly underused ever since this and her brief shot at critical success in “Places in the Heart”, although 1987’s Nowhere to Hide” is well worth checking out) gives a 100% comic strip turn as the tough but astute Soldier (again, nothing is made of a female combatant in Hill’s world) and as she makes a lasting impression as she points guns and delivers lines like “Next time it’ll be right in your nuts pal, no what I mean”, and my favourite, to a bunch of Cops held on the ground at gunpoint, ”You know, some of you guy’s got some cute little asses. It’ll be a real shame if I have to blow them off”.
80’s fave Moranis (Ghostbusters”, “Honey I shrunk the Kids”) is given a loud brash character and gives exactly that performance, but again it could not be any other way.

Diane Lane is given little to do really, but she does fine with a sadly one dimensional character, looks great, and handles the song/concert sequences with flair.
Dafoe uses his, er, ‘unusual’ features to great affect under a coating of pale make-up (with a ducktail haircut no less) and is obviously enjoying his overblown villain role. Raven is basically an older High School bully out for kicks (the only reason he kidnaps Ellen in the first place, “I’m not such a bad guy…I just get excited around pretty girls”) and as he struts down a flame drenched street and announces to Cody “Well, looks like I’ve finally run into someone who likes to play as rough as I do” you just have to let any sense of realism float away. The less said about his truly awful plastic bin bag dungarees the better though!
Deborah Van Valkenburgh is given only a small role as Reva, Cody’s Sister, but she emits a nicely ballsy attitude and laid back openness. Best shown via a great line when Cody asks her about any men in her life; “I bring one back now and again”.

Away from the already mentioned ‘Sorels’, the other support players include Punk icon Lee Ving (of the band ‘Fear’ and who turned up in the John Carpenter scripted “Black Moon Rising”) playing Raven’s biker sidekick, a young, quifftastic Bill Paxton (“Aliens”) doing his usual Bill Paxton turn as a cocky barman, latter day John Carpenter regular Peter Jason, (“They Live”) turns up as a roadblock Cop and Elizabeth Daily (who would find vocal fame in the popular “Rugrats” cartoon as 'Tommy' Pickles!) pops up as a very 80’s fan of Ellen.
The best cameo appearance though goes to Ed Begley Jr who has a brilliant cameo as a ‘smarter than he looks’ street bum who (like everyone) takes less than kindly to the rude Billy Fish, “Oh…You’re dumb. And you’re short. Real short”.

Given the subject matter it’s no surprise that Hill gives “Streets of Fire” the same kind of feel (especially during the journey back from ‘The Battery’) as his earlier gang war based movie “The Warriors” (only far less serious) but this is still very much an unusual film for him as well as in general.
The negatives are still there, a couple of the end songs have aged badly, the movie coasts on auto pilot for 10 minutes before the final, straight out of a 50’s High School gang flick, showdown and in fact the first half of the film is much superior to the 2nd half, but in general this is a film that embraces and enjoys the elements that would be open for valid criticism in basically any other movie and expects the viewer to do the same because that’s how the film has to be to succeed. Leave the cynicism at the door or prepare to be disappointed.

“Streets of Fire” has gained (and maintained) it’s Cult status for just and valid reasons. It’s a slam bang, fast moving, comic strip, hardboiled cliché hugging, time period hopping fantasy that does exactly what it says on the label and has no pretensions to be anything else. Sit back, crank up the volume (the 5:1 mix on the DVD is great) and enjoy a uniquely weird ride, that pretty much stands up as well as it ever did over 20 years later.