STREETS OF FIRE (1984) - ***

Talk about a movie I've been dreading to review.

The very underrated Walter Hill is one of my favorite filmmakers, whose shot some cool stuff from the Chuck Bronson fight flick HARD TIMES to the great western THE LONG RIDERS, including a darling of mine, the awesome THE WARRIORS. After the box-office success of 48 HRS., Hill was at his career peak and could make any movie he wanted, so he jammed together everything he liked, which included:

"custom cars, kissing in the rain, neon, trains in the night, high-speed pursuit, rumbles, rock stars, motorcycles, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets and questions of honor."

Thus was STREETS OF FIRE, Hill's would-be summer blockbuster, "A Rock & Roll Fable" made for the MTV Generation...and there was Fire alright, as the flick crashed and burned on opening weekend. Afterwards, Hill was just never the same, shooting only a solid gem here and there.

So on one hand, I would like to see some merit in a crippling effort like FIRE, and yet I've had a slight personal grudge for years against this unseen picture. You see, Universal had such high hopes for FIRE, they bolstered its already considerable advertising budget by totally cannibalizing the campaign funds of several smaller studio pictures, like Alex Cox's REPO MAN.

So if you want a chief reason why that cult classic was financially DOA before hitting theatres, blame FIRE.

But I must say, I actually sorta enjoyed STREETS OF FIRE, or at least the idea of it. Within the "Another Time, Another Place" of FIRE, the Hippies and Yuppies of the 1960s and 70s never happened, and the music and culture of the 1950s evolved right through the Reagan Decade. So yes, Studebakers drive under bright neon lights, women in skirts stroll down the sidewalk, and greasers gracing the pompadour haircut watch the latest music videos on TV.

If Hill used the comic book storytelling narrative for THE WARRIORS, then he tried the comic book visual narrative for FIRE. The electric opening concert, the best editing scheme of Hill's entire filmography, uses pulsating quick cuts to resemble the cognitive pastiche of imagery that we absorb from the connecting panels of a comic book page.

When the faceless bikers, masked by darknesss, sulk into the night club as Diane Lane is singing onstage, you just know that these phantoms are nothing but trouble. Then the gargoyle mug of their leader Willem Dafoe slowly fades into the light....It's such a creative groovy sequence, its unfortunate that most of the movie just isn't this cool.

After Dafoe kidnaps Lane, we cut right into a Hill's usual streamlined hard-knuckles plot: Lane's pal telegrams her Ex-juvenile delinquent/ Ex-soldier brother Michael Pare to come back home to town and rescue Lane, his ex-girlfriend. Like Michael Beck in THE WARRIORS, its easy to accuse Pare of wooden acting, but he's only your typical Hill hero: a tough guy that doesn't talk much, not necessarily always likeable, and looks like he can kick your ass.

How I know this? Because when he's alone at a cafe, and some punks walk-in...you know somebody is gonna get thrown through the plate-glass window, and it aint Pare.

I liked how he refuses to save Lane, but he pulls out an old Black & White photograph of her, and Hill dissolves into an effectively nostalgic flashback, or the hero's memory making that image come alive. You buy why Pare changes his mind, even if he charges $10,000 from her manager/beau (Rick Moranis) for the job. Anyway, Pare is pretty solid for the part, just too bad his career went direct to video.

Now the best thing about FIRE that I just totally dig is Amy Madigan, the tough sidekick. Apparently the role was originally written for a man, but Madigan so impressed Hill, he re-wrote the part for her. Now action figure women in such genre movies either work, or simply don't. It's a gimmick that the audience can easily reject, but I tell ya, Madigan sold it for me when she demanded another drink at a tavern, and knocked out the bartender Bill Paxton when he refused. Also, Madigan is married in real-life to Ed Harris, so that's a plus.

Then there is Moranis, who usually back in the 80s either played the nerd (LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS) or the punchline (GHOSTBUSTERS), but he's surprisingly fun as the wise-guy that whines and complains at the hero. He's an asshole, but admittedly he's the only smart person in this story, or at least the one with enough brains to pay others to risk life and limb to retrieve his meal ticket.

But Dafoe man...The only way I can describe Dafoe in FIRE is that, imagine if Charles Manson hadn't gone mad in obsession with The Beatles or "Helter Skelter," but instead with James Dean and wearing latex coveralls without shirts. Dafoe makes so much out as a fun psychotic villainous maniac out of so little given to him, I actually hate Hill for not giving him anymore scenes. Plus, I forgot how (even more) goddamn scary-looking the dude was back then.

In retrospect, I have tons of problems with STREETS OF FIRE. If the opening of FIRE was brilliant, and the overall 1st half is fun pulp action, then the movie just loses most of its momentum in the 2nd half when Pare and troupe return back home, as nothing really happens, or to use pretentious film criticism, the thin story can no longer piggyback on the film's aesthetics.

I really groaned when FIRE teases Pare and Lane possibly getting back together because despite him sharing some deep past feelings for her....that ship has definately sailed.

I mean, yeah Lane is drop-dead gorgeous and most of us men want to bed her, but she seems like a rather boring person. Moranis and Lane do make a better couple ultimately because they share something in common: Her singing career. Most men would probably rather be in Madigan's company, even as just a friend. Besides, she wouldn't force Pare to go see the SEX & THE CITY movie this weekend.

Also, Hill gives conflicting answers to whatever American racial segregation ever ended in this universe. While you have a black Cop (Richard Lawson) try to keep the peace with Dafoe and Pare, you then have Pare's group meet up with a Motown-like music act in the back of a bus, who're pulled over by the police and called a "gang of spades." Maybe its just too provocative of an interesting idea to simply throwaway in a picture like this.

Ah Screw it, I like this movie in spite of itself. Maybe I'm a sucker for flicks where a major violent brawl between bikers and civilians, each side armed to the teeth with bats, chains, knives, and guns, is eminent until its delegated to simply Pare and Dafoe. Maybe I mark at them dueling with sledgehammers(!), and maybe I just like that Moranis gets the girl for once.

But babe, if you don't dig it, I won't hold it against you.