bahrom1

A shame. An all star cast and the great source material have both been wasted. I found the movie to be ridiculously overacted to the point of turning into a farce at times. Overacting was uniform across all the performances so the blame clearly lies with the director who did this on purpose. Lumet filmed this more as a stage play than a movie. In plays overacting is expected. Its role is to make up for the lack of visuals and audio which a stage performance can never supply in full.

Movies have no such limitations and overacting is not only unnecessary but is counterproductive as this movie shows. As I said, a shame. With the stellar cast it could have been so much better. Also, with the exception of Albert Finney the said stellar cast is not given enough material to work Vanessa Redgrave gets particularly short shrift. She hardly has any lines.

5/10.

Ah, what could have been... I have a real soft spot for Streets of Fire. A stylish rock 'n roll meets meets film noir story. It well worth watching just for the songs. One of the best soundtracks ever, particularly the bookends Nowhere Fast and Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young. Diane Lane brings great energy to both and the songs and her performance in those scenes really elevate the whole movie.

Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young should have been topping the charts.

The movie also nails the visuals. Set in a "different time and a different place" it carefully avoids any references to actual events and places (none of the cars have licence plates) and creates a unique gritty aesthetic of its own.

The movie calls itself a Rock & Roll fable in the opening credits and that is a good name for it. It combines rock 'n roll style of the 80s with that of the 50s. Lots of neon signs and all cars are old fashioned muscle cars.

The acting is mostly good with some notable exceptions (more on that later). Rick Moranis is particularly surprising as he plays against his comedic type.

All of this makes for ingredients of a good movie. And it is one but it could have been so much better too.

First, the scripts struggles to combine so many things it wants to do: noir, love, action and rock 'n roll and under delivers as the result. The characters talk as people from gritty Raymond Chandler novels. That was clearly intended but the trouble is that dialogue that works well in a book doesn't always work well on screen and that's particularly true here. It just sounds silly at times.

Another thing is Michael Pare as the main hero. BIG, big miscast. He is just not a good enough actor. This is particularly obvious when he is in the same scene with actors who are actually good such as Rick Moranis. Pare just drags down every scene he is in which is most of the movie, him being the main hero and all. There is zero chemistry between him and Diane Lane and the romance between them doesn't work despite Lane's best efforts. She is much better in the scenes without him, particularly the musical numbers. Apparently the director considered other people for the role such as Patrick Swayze but chose Pare. Big mistake IMHO.

Still, the movie is well worth watching. 7.5/10.