Streets of Fire

Count me among the many who can't understand why 1984's STREETS OF FIRE wasn't a hit.  It's far from a perfect film, yet my rewatch earlier this year revealed something that looked better than ever.  Has "aged well".  No one before or since has fashioned such a creature - a tough talking, violent, musical, decade melding good time.  It's pretty safe to say that this was co-writer/director Walter Hill's last great movie, ending a strong run that began in 1975.  It may well also be his most stylish.

The setting is a gritty urban scape that seems to be caught between the 1950s and '80s, beautifully shot by Director of Photography Andrew Laszlo.  The clothes, the cars, and the dialogue reek of Eisenhower era America while the music is decidedly more modern.  Ellen Aim (Diane Lane) and the Attackers have returned home for a show.   For some reason, a gang of biker punks led by Raven (Willem Defoe) decide to kidnap her, right onstage.  These opening scenes are positively electric.  I heard Hill state in an interview he didn't know how to shoot concert sequences.  Could've fooled me, Walter; they pulse with excitement and look amazing.

The electricity continues when Tom Cody (Michael Pare) returns to town after his sister Reva (Deborah van Valkenburgh) summons him, pleading to rescue Ellen, his ex-girlfriend.  Tom's a laconic badass who's served time and within minutes of his homecoming creams a gang of greasers who terrorize Reva's diner.  This scene demonstrates Hill's flair for action, with deftly orchestrated butterfly switchblade slinging, slapping, and hatrack swinging, and is just as cartoonish as any moment out of THE WARRIORS.

Tom meets with Ellen's boyfriend/manager, a surly motormouth nerd named Billy Fish (Rick Moranis) who offers 10K for her return.  He will join Tom on this mission as he knows the neighborhood where Ellen is being held.   Also tagging along is a tough chick Cody meets in a bar named McCoy (Amy Madigan), who says she used to be a soldier.  The mission is a success but of course Raven swears payback.  Will Tom and Ellen get back together?  Will Billy ever stop being such a dick? Who's gonna pay for that window at the diner?

Don't examine Hill and Larry Gross' screenplay too hard.  Yes, those questions will come fast and furious.  The role of the police will be but one.  This is pure fantasy in "another time, another place."  Hill's world where everyone has an attitude.  What matters is the style, and it burns pretty much right to the close.  Hill includes artful "wipes" between scenes and plays it straight most of the time.  

Pare is fine as the hero.  I heard that Tom Cruise was originally offered the role.  Lane doesn't get to do all that much but does a solid job lip syncing some typically over the top Jim Steinman tunes.  Madigan is appropriately tomboyish and Moranis is hilarious.  His and nearly everyone's words are delivered like music. Van Valkenburgh, an alum from THE WARRIORS, also doesn't get to do a whole lot, usually viewed staring off longingly.  

STREETS OF FIRE reinforces the adage of film being a director's medium, and Walter Hill really dazzles with this rather silly but entirely engaging bit of pulp.  Ry Cooder's score rumbles nicely.  That Dan Hartman tune, sung by a (fictional) doo-wop quartet called the Sorels, is still enjoyable.  I'm sorry audiences didn't show up in droves for this movie.  I have to scold myself as well, as I didn't catch it until its numerous viewings on HBO a year or so after its release.  But the cult grew, and continues.