Straight to Hell

Even though I am a huge Alex Cox fan, I still had a large problem with even finding this gem. It is definitely one of the most crazy, funny, and unpredictable films ever made. I kept thinking that if David Lynch had directed THE WILD BUNCH you would have STRAIGHT TO HELL. It is chock full of a rogues gallery of unique and unforgettable characters. Basically a group of renegade criminals flee to a little dump town in the middle of nowhere to hide out for a while. The result is chaos and more chaos as they try to escape the hell they've found. Don't expect any traditional Hollywood storyline or plot here. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. And you might just realize that Quentin Tarantino wasn't that revolutionary after all.

P.S. > Norwood is the man!

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.

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.

"Straight to Hell" follows a trio of criminals (with a female sidekick, making them a quad) who rob a suitcase full of cash and take off into the desert to go into hiding. Their car breaks down, leaving them stranded in the middle of a desert valley, where they find a seemingly abandoned ghost town. The next morning, however, a band of wild, murderous cowboys roll into town with guns, whiskey, and... espresso machines.

This utterly insane late '80s western romp pays homage to spaghetti westerns, Sergio Leone, and Clint Eastwood in equal measure, but drowned in such heavy idiosyncrasies and whacked out writing that the audience can do nothing but sit back and attempt to take it all in. In all truth, the writing here is completely underdeveloped, and the film feels like a melange of punk rockers and culture icons thrown in front of a camera in the Spanish desert—because that's kind of what it is.

Alex Cox, who infamously directed "Repo Man" and "Sid & Nancy," is the director and co-writer here, and while the script is delightfully absurd and full of issues (it has been said that Cox and his co-writer came up with it in a matter of three days), the direction is decent, and the film seems to rise above its production values on a visual level. It utilizes the western ghost town sets in Almeria, Spain, which were historically used in many spaghetti westerns, and even some Eastwood films, and the dusty desert atmosphere is laid on thick.

The real attraction of this film is its cast, largely made up of musicians—we've got Joe Strummer, Sy Richardson, and Dick Rude as the three bandidos, with a pre-Hole, pre-rhinoplasty Courtney Love playing their screeching yet somehow endearing pregnant sidekick. Rounding out the cast is The Pogues, Xander Berkeley, Elvis Costello, an insouciant Grace Jones, and Dennis Hopper, mad as a hatter. The film really seems like an excuse for this ensemble of punk rockers, rejects, and icons to run around the desert dancing, shooting each other, and drinking coffee, and that's just the pretense one has to accept with this film.

All in all, "Straight to Hell" will be a chore for many to sit through, but for anyone who appreciates bizarre cinema, spaghetti westerns, or exploitation trash will have a great time with this film (watching it through, one can see the referential moulds which Quentin Tarantino would come to bring into the cultural lexicon several years later). The narrative is almost completely nonsensical, but the visuals, paired with what is probably one of the weirdest casts in film history, really make this not only a time capsule, but a complete and utter anomaly. 7/10.

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.