Streets of Fire (1984)
Another Time, Another Place...
I’m an honest person - I had something else in mind for tonight. I got as far as buying the movie I was going to use for tonight - but then a friend pointed out something was on Netflix, and I realized my only true option was to do that instead. Why, you ask? Because I thought I already had done it, and if nothing else that feels like the motto for my choices lately. Just how many movies have I had Déjà vu for lately when it comes to these things? Well, a lot, and now it’s one more. This might seem like were going nowhere slowly, but tonight we look fast at Streets of Fire.
Come for the music, stick around for a sledgehammer fight with a young Dafoe. Let me lay this down before we get too far along - as with most things I will be pointing out some positives and some negatives, but that doesn’t mean everyone will agree with them. People who have an easy time enjoying movies of all qualities will find themselves having way more fun with this movie than those who are really tight on what they have to have in a movie to be enjoyable. This isn’t to try and lead you into believing this is a bad movie - this is just a broad statement that it’s not going to be for everyone. Our story might seem a bit twisty - but I assure you, it’s a love story. Singer gal gets kidnapped by an evil biker gang in the middle of her concert, so an attendee summons her brother home to save the singer who happens to be his old flame. Can he do it, and can they all survive the repercussions? Along the way, more characters get added in - an ex-military gal mechanic immune to the brothers charms, a high-money manager new boyfriend, a quartet of talented singers and a devoted little follower. In the end, it’s a mano-a-mano bare knuckle brawl for honor to settle it all.
So what set’s it apart? Well, the music. Straight up, I would argue that the absolute best part of this movie is the music. There’s this great blend of ‘50s rock with a bit of 80’s mixed in there as well. One minute you’ll be getting delivered One Bad Stud in a biker bar, the next you’ll be slapped with an upbeat acapella groove Countdown to Love. Not enough? How about some more original stuff that sounds like something Bonnie Taylor would blast out in a concert like Tonight is What it Means to be Young? This is one of those movies where I would a hundred percent understand someone having purchased for their playlist rotation. The music is just straight jams wherever you hear it. That said, not all of it is essential to the plot, and some of it plays out more as just background music - even if it’s a focus on the screen and plays out it basically it’s entirety, like the biker bar scene. Look - I ain’t complaining, I love this music, and for the most part they keep things happening while the music is going with the exception of the two primary concert songs, where it’s mostly about the concert with some fun scene stuff happening during it, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call this movie a musical as much as a movie with music as a part of it.
So what’s next? Let’s talk setting - because the setting also leads to something else that’s sort of neat in my opinion. See, our setting is this kind of blend much like the music - a lot of times you see the cars and the likes and it just blasts your mind’s straight into the 50’s with the classy cars. Other times you see all this neon floating around blasting accent colors all over the screen and it feels much more like something you’d expect out of a retro-fueled 80’s theme. Against all of that is a character pallet largely the same- for the most part you get those very muted colors - browns, blues, greys - you would think of from something older, and then the party starts and we get those blasts of colors from dresses and neons in the streets. Now, where it gets interesting to me is when you watch, there is but a single character that really stands out in this because of color - the singer. Her red dress, or the flashes thereof whilst covered by a coat - are the most eye-catching thing in the movie. It’s not even a matter of “oh the girl in the red dress is real pretty so you keep staring at her” like in the Matrix scene, it just often feels like the only real vivid color in the scene, despite it never feeling desaturated like some get the (rather rightful) feeling in something like a Snyder flick. It in turn makes the singer feel like this important deal - like the holy grail or something - but the fact that it’s also red of all colors could spark all manner of symbolism discussion towards being the center of the love story, the lust for something better, the fuel for the rage, or the symbol of a passionate following of ones dreams.
Concealed weapons.
Now, although the setting is pretty cool in the way it blends familiar and different things together, and the fact that it can be unified in colors without feeling like someone slid the saturation slider to the negatives I also have to say that the costumes aren’t horrible. They aren’t always the most impressive in the sense you want to wear it - the sleeveless-button up, for example, looks silly as heck in my opinion - but they do a decent job for the main characters in not seeming like an absolute normal everyday thing. The main villain in his leathery-latexy overalls with no shirt stands out amonst the rest of the rather expected stereotypical biker get ups. The manager has a suit that seems garishly obvious to set him apart from everyone else. The main character ends up feeling a bit like a budget Mal Reynolds from Firefly to me, but there’s surely worse things you could feel like. The overall levels of darkness in the movie can come across a tad bit annoying at times, given most the movie feels like it happens at night, but it’s not even remotely on the same level as AvP:R, which forgot even the most basic of flashlight to light their scenes with.
Now, acting is the part where I think I find the biggest potential for complaints. I’ve seen far worse thanks to my penchant of watching SyFy originals and the like - and it’s not even really fair to say it entirely lies on the actors if it does feel like maybe they could do a bit more than what they are doing. It carries a level of camp from the acting - but more so than any of that it’s from the dialogue lines themselves. I mean, it might be enjoyable, but at times it’s sometimes just dumb. This is where my previous comment about “enjoying all sorts of movies” comes in - if you get real annoyed at movies that don’t have tear-jerking performances, this is where the movie is going to start loosing you. In my book, they do a fine enough job that it works for the movie, but some of the dialogue really doesn’t help any of them get the chance to blow it out of the water. They get a few times to pull of some emotions, and there are without a doubt some of the actors that do a better job and playing it up then others - but you’ll also find a surprising number of A listers in this thing - Dafoe, Paxton, and Moranis to name a few. Our two mains - the singer (Lane) and the ex boyfriend (Paré) - also have had some rapid-fire careers before but mostly after this movie, despite me having not really recognized them by name outside of this one. Such is the reason that I tend to lean more into the lines can just be a bit rough compared to the actors being bad - it seems like they are playing it exactly as they were intended to, whether in your mind it’s for the better or worse.
The action is probably the arguably weakest part of the movie. This isn’t to say the pacing is bad - the pacing keeps trucking along up until it gets a little caught up in a music video moment, and even then it usually has something going on like people setting up in the background to move to the next scene. What I actually mean is there isn’t really anything nuts about the choreography. This is no kung fu movie in the slightest, more like “put up your dukes o’ chap” old timey British boxer guy fighting. While the choreography won’t necessarily impress, it’s still got some rumbles - the big finale, an early altercation, and the midway strike. The middle contains the most in the effects department - a good number of explosions and motorcycle-based stunt performer action. Despite it not being battle’s everywhere, the stunt team gets to do plenty of stuff, particularly in that scene, and despite most the action being somewhat limited in scale it also still carries some level of excitement to it - even if for some it might be more chuckling then edge-of-your seat shadow boxing. At times it’ll just start cutting about to speed it up a bit - not seizure-inducing Resident Evil or Taken jumping a fence level of cutting, much less abrasive then that. It’s way less “our actor couldn’t do this and we wanted to cover them not being able to do it (or that it’s not even them)” and more "let’s just speed this up a bit because it’s not really as important or exciting if we draw it out.”
Wouldn’t be a proper save the love interest mission without a boss fight.
This is a movie where I can almost guarantee it’s not for everyone. I don’t even need to see the 6.7 rating on IMDB to know that. For me, it’s a fun little movie with an awesome sound track. For some people, it’s the best dang movie to hit the screen - and for some it’s just a stinker. If you go in it for the music, for an interesting aesthetic with some nice camerawork, and an overall sense of style you may or may not like you’ll most likely find yourself agreeing with me or the group the loves it. If you go in for some Emmy-nominated acting and the best writing for the most unique story to ever exist you might not be enjoying it nearly as much as you could. I would say that by the soundtrack alone people should find it worth at least checking out - especially while it’s on Netflix, where it costs you nothing extra to watch it if you already have a subscription anyways. Of course, if you don’t like that 50/80s jam session they got going on, then I guess there’s really just no help for you anyways!