Straight to Hell

OK, Joe Strummer plays a hit-man, the Pogues are Banditos, Elvis Costello's their butler, and Courtney Love dies a violent death....what more could you ask for?

The price of man's obsessions are a trip Straight to Hell (in a rented red import no less). There is no nuance in this movie, just blood, money, coffee, guns and sexual tension. There is a pregnant demon named Velma and a Christ figure named Karl. All but two of the characters in the movie are hardly characters at all, just expressions of lust and obsession. Conveniently they are all played by non-actors (Musicians that couldn't get the backing to do a concert in Nicaragua in '87). Dennis Hopper plays what is essentially Mephistophilis calling all the players home to hell. Sy Richardson's Norwood is the only character who is not ruled by his obsessions. In this morality play that is what separates his fate from everyone else's. An important commentary on our modern world. Or maybe it was just all that mescaline.

Seriously folks cut Alex some slack. The picture is beautifully filmed. The people who can't act are given one dimensional roles which is highly preferable to giving someone that has no acting ability a role with weight and importance (Daryl Hannah in Wall Street, Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing). It's got a fantastic soundtrack and Karl doing the Weiner Dog Song is one of the funniest things ever. Really. Ever.

There are several other people out there who liked this movie. In fact, I went so far as to buy the movie and the soundtrack. Anyone who likes the Pogues should put this on their must see list. If you want to see a movie full of shoot-em-ups, car chases for no reason and lots of dialogue that will make you say to yourself, "Did he say what I think he said?" then turn your brain off for an evening and watch this.

Imagine a parody of a French art film version of a spaghetti western built entirely out of oddly distorted cliches. Expect it to be every bit as incomprehensible as the stereotypical art film. Don't expect it to have a plot or anything close to a normal gag. If this still sounds interesting then you may enjoy it as much as I did, but I warn you that I'm the only person I know who doesn't think this movie is awful.

FYI - if you're wondering about the scenes where characters are described as being "Shikseh", the DVD commentary shows that this is how Cox and the actors thought the word "schizo" should be pronounced. I don't know, maybe it's a British thing, but I found it very confusing when I first watched the film.

This is a story of three desperadoes and a girl who accidentally go to a small town after screwing up an assassination job and robbing a bank. The town is owned by the McMahon family (the Pogues with a few others thrown in) all of whom are addicted to coffee and enjoy killing and being all in all bastards. There's tension, characters clashing and sexual. The film didn't have a whole lot of a plot, but that doesn't really matter much because it seems to be more of a spoof on spaghetti westerns and even the actors and actresses themselves. It takes repeated viewing to really get down what is going on and how the parties are related to each other, but that doesn't seem to matter quite so much. All in all, I recommend this film to those of you who love weird movies and everyone who remembers the 80's punk scene.