Streets of Fire (1984) Universal/Action-Adventure-Sci-Fi RT: 93 minutes Rated PG (language, violence, brief sexuality) Director: Walter Hill Screenplay: Walter Hill and Larry Gross Music: Ry Cooder Cinematography: Andrew Laszlo Release date: June 1, 1984 (US) Starring: Michael Pare, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan, Willem Dafoe, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Richard Lawson, Rick Rossovich, Bill Paxton, Lee Ving, Stoney Jackson, Grand L. Bush, Robert Townsend, Mykelti Williamson, Elizabeth Daily, Lynne Thigpen, Marine Jahan, Ed Begley Jr., John Dennis Johnston, Peter Jason, Paul Mones. Box Office: $8.1M (US)
Rating: *** ½
The key to understanding Walter Hill’s Streets of Fire is realizing his “rock and roll fable” takes place in some alternate reality where the 50s never quite went away. People still drive around in Studebakers and wear clothing that reflects the era. The music has elements of doo-wop, rock and roll, rockabilly and 80s New Wave. The people of the fictional town of Richmond live underneath the elevated tracks of the train. It’s a 50s world with an 80s sensibility.
Ellen Aim (Lane, The Outsiders), a hometown girl who made it big as a rock star, returns home to do a benefit concert. After a great opening number “Nowhere Fast”, things get crazy. Raven (Dafoe, Wild at Heart), the leader of a leather-clad motorcycle gang, jumps up on stage and kidnaps Ellen much to the annoyance of her manager/boyfriend Billy Fish (Moranis, Parenthood), a wimp who dresses like the class creep of 1958.
The only one who can do anything about it is Ellen’s ex-boyfriend Tom Cody (Pare, Eddie and the Cruisers), an ex-soldier who isn’t very popular with the local cops. His sister Reva (Van Valkenburgh, The Warriors) calls him home to rescue Ellen from The Bombers holed up in the worst part of town- aka “The Battery”. He agrees to do the job for $10,000. He’s joined by McCoy (Madigan, Field Of Dreams), a tough-as-nails mechanic who can drive anything on wheels.
Going in and grabbing Ellen is the easy part of the mission. She’s being held at a club called Torchy’s (a Hill trademark). Cody and McCoy manage to retrieve her right out from under Raven’s nose. The hard part is getting back home. In that respect, Streets of Fire resembles another Hill classic, The Warriors. Along the way, they encounter a doo-wop band The Sorels looking for their big break. Their bus comes in mighty handy. Naturally, it’ll all come down to a big fight between Cody and Raven.
Streets of Fire is never boring, not even when there’s no action. It’s the whole look of the movie that keeps it interesting throughout. The combination of different eras is clever. Raven is an evil version of a 50s motorcycle gang leader. As played by the always reliable Dafoe, he positively oozes danger and menace. He’s aided by Lee Ving (Black Moon Rising) as his second-in-command. He makes one scary villain too. Pare does fine work as the misunderstood hero. His tough guy persona is a façade covering how he really feels about Ellen. He claims to be saving her just for the money, but we know it’s because he still cares. Streets of Fire is one of the three movies that were supposed to catapult Pare to stardom, the others being Eddie and the Cruisers and The Philadelphia Experiment, but it never happened for him. It’s too bad because he’s actually a pretty good actor.
One of the most compelling characters of this movie is McCoy. Madigan takes the character and runs with it. She’s a total bad ass. Lane is very good as Ellen, a rocker who’s also hiding her true feelings about Cody. He may have ditched her without a word back in the day, but she never stopped loving him. Moranis is dead-on perfect as the weaselly manager who keeps trying to save face with Ellen against a tougher romantic adversary.
Streets of Fire failed at the box office upon its release. It doesn’t help that it opened against Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. It’s clear what movie audiences will opt to see if given the choice. I am one of the few that chose to see Streets of Fire instead of Star Trek III that weekend. It looked like something I’d enjoy and I did. It tells a cool story. Ry Cooder, a frequent Hill collaborator, provides a dead-on perfect score as usual. Ellen’s songs (actually sung by Fire Inc.) are great especially “Nowhere Fast” and “Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young”, both written by frequent Meat Loaf collaborator Jim Steinman. Another track “I Can Dream About You” became a huge hit for the late Dan Hartman. The concert scenes, some of the best I’ve ever seen, brim with pure energy.
Hill, one of my favorite directors, does an amazing job with Streets of Fire. He gives us a cool supporting cast that includes Elizabeth Daily (Bad Dreams) as a groupie, Bill Paxton (Weird Science) as Cody’s bartender friend and John Dennis Johnston (The Beast Within) as an illegal arms dealer.
One of the most underrated movies of the 80s, Streets of Fire seemed to play on an endless loop on cable in the latter half of the 80s yet nobody ever talked about it. I got funny looks from high school classmates when I said how much I enjoyed it. I guess, like me, it was ahead of its time. Nobody but a select few got what Hill was going for. I did, of course, and enjoyed every minute of it.
