Road to Hell

I attended the Las Vegas screening and I have to say that it wasn't at all what I expected. As a huge Streets Of Fire fan I was expecting more of a sequel or part two as the buzz around the internet suggested. I loved that it went into the darker side of the story and the music was out of this world. Roxy Gunn is stunning and the songs and concert scenes are musical masterpieces! Casting Gunn as Michael Pare and Diane Lane's daughter was brilliant! I'm so glad I got to see this. Again I think this will be a huge cult classic. I think I might even travel to a few other film festivals so I can see it again. I can't wait to get this on DVD.

Saw it at the Austin Fantastic Fest last year. It was screened with Streets of Fire by Walter Hill and the stars of that and Road to Hell were present. It was quite disconcerting for me as I have never seen Streets of fire before so to see a very youthful Michael Pare and then to see him or his character over twenty years later was one of the most strong experiences I have at a movie screening. Both films were done with much style and surreal images. Neither film was set in a real world but a world of our imaginations. But the contrasting views were powerful. It was like in Streets of fire Pare was still full of romance and hope but years later that hope is destroyed and he is instead cynical and hostile. There was a core of god in him in the first film and he seeks to nurture the promise of that good but years later in Road To Hell he's more than disillusioned with the world. I found the whole thing fascinating and thoughtful. It too bad that Road To Hell was not near finished and was quite rough in the presentation. I am curious to see how it comes out in the end because it has a much on the story's mind. How life twists and turns and how we change over time. I think this is a new approach where you see the character as a young idealistic hero turned years later into bitterness and you feel his pain and what disappointments he must have had. One idea my friends talked about like his sister says in the beginning of Road to hell, is how he was always troubled and not right in the head or heart even when he was a child and how Ellen was his hold on the hope he could be good. You do see Pare's anger and dark side in Streets of Fire and is fascinating to see how it ends up consuming him years later. I hope Road to hell can fix some of the technical problems and get it all okay. It is quite intelligent with ideas but is shocking and profane and with horrifying violence but it works well as a character study of a hero gone very dark.

I was going to wait until I saw the finished film to comment but people from the Fantastic Fest screening are giving their early views so here's mine. I agree with everything all three say about it. It is a very bent vision that is at turns intoxicating, offensive, moving and repulsive. It isn't the kind of movie where you just sit back and turn off your brain because I think the filmmaker intend for you to think about what you are hearing and what you are seeing. It's ambitious in how dense with nuance the plot, if you can call it that, is with all sorts of contradiction. The fact that the film was so unfinished made it hard to watch at times so I have to withhold any final judgements. Same for no giving a proper synopsis because I am sure they will need to work on that. I am very curious to see it. It's really a throwback to acid trip movies of the 60's and 70's where the audience had to bring their own head trips to mingle with the film's. Michael Pare and Clare Kramer are riveting. The movie leans heavily on their charisma and ability to keep the audience sympathetic with their characters even as they perform the most heinous and repellant acts on other characters and yes, jeeps. I think they should have waited before screening the film is such a rough form but I hope they got useful feedback they can incorporate as the shape the final film. This film could be a ten if they pull it all together or it could end up a 1. It's got the potential to do both. Heaven or Hell.

I was going to wait until I had a chance to see the finished film because what I saw at the Fantastic Fest last year was almost too rough to watch. I must admit that even with the poor projection and clearly unfinished effects shots, the film packed a powerful if disturbing emotional wallop. At times I was so shocked by the rage fueled violence set to rock ballads that I could feel myself flush and even swept by a wave of momentarily nausea. The film is one that will split audiences because it really puts forth the depressing idea that for even larger than life iconic heroes, life can turn disappointing and desparing. I don't think I've ever seen a film that takes a dashing heroic figure as a youth and then shows us the ruins that is his life 20 years later. In a weird way it was an analogy for me to wars like Viet Nam where youth is idealistic, filled with life only to return home a shell of a man. That's what we have here. An almost super human and stoic hero reduced to a destructed, bitter man. He's delusional in the hope he can be saved. Pare does a masterful job in bringing Cody's pain, desperation, and confusion to life. It's the best performance in his career. Clare Kramer is very very good too. Her character must be one of the most obscenely vile person ever portrayed on screen. What is amazing is how she can be so ugly and yet so breathtakingly sexy in the same moment. I really want to withhold final judgment as the film did say it was a work in progress. The movie has definitely stayed with me. It screened with Pare's Streets of fire and that made the contrast of Pare even more striking. He's so young and youthful in Streets and so grimly weathered in Road To Hell. It's one of the more shocking things to see. Like one of those where are they now things where you see a sweet face then the now shows the image of a ravaged meth addict. You wonder how did one go from sweet to horrific? In a nutshell that's what this film explores.

Let me start by saying what I saw at the Austin Fantastic Fest was very much still unfinished and a work in progress, as it proclaims at the outset. So what was screened was extremely rough. The projected image was dim and washed out because it was a video projector instead of a film projector and a friend said it was played from a laptop. The image did freeze a few times.

Okay, that stuff aside, how was the film itself? The words raw, shocking, disturbing and, like Ken Russell's or some of Oshima's films. Thought provoking and a film you watch from a distance because EVERYTHING is symbolic and stuffed with subtext and is as sexually violent as it gets. This might get an X rating I would think.

The film doesn't exist in a civilized reality but in Cody's (Pare) twisted mind, in his darkest feelings for the world. It really is like we are experiencing his stream of consciousness and its so distorted and angry. I will have to admit that Road to Hell screening immediately after Streets of Fire really does create a vivid contrast in how life doesn't always turn out well for the hero. And, like in Taxi Driver, this creates an almost pure force of rage against society. The violence and brutality is really window dressing in a sense as the film's true intent is the study of disillusionment and alienation.

It will be interesting to see the finished product because it is clearly ambitious in it's look and design. It's day-glo noir. What we saw was very unfinished and still needed work. Some shots were just against a green screen still with no background.

Pare gives the best performance I've ever seen from him. He's sexy, dangerous and evokes deep tragedy and a real sense of loss. We feel his disappointment in humankind and in life. In his view, there's nothing worth saving anymore. The only salvation before he becomes an utter monster is to find his long lost love Ellen. His great love from a time when the world still held some hope for him. You get a sense that the film was somehow cathartic for Pare as he goes full out in giving this searing performance.

As the she devil incarnate is Clare Kramer. What a performance. One moment she's the vilest creature ever to walk the earth and in the next you are rooting for her to achieve her dreams. Its an incredibly fine and brave performance by an actress I liked but now love. I won't give anything away but she becomes endearing by the end of the film. No easy task considering how vile she is throughout much of the film. She is raw and discomforting with brazen nudity included.

Everything about the film is stylized. It has an odd cadence to the speech patterns and has a noir feel to the language. Hardboiled and coarse and feeling like its drama is rooted in a experimental stage drama. It culminates in theatrical and surreal horror and madness.

How will people like it? I can't say until I see the film finished. But I would recommend watching Streets of Fire before watching Road to Hell to get the full view. This film may not be everyone's cup of java but it certainly not like any other film I've ever seen or felt. I might still give it a ten once I see the finished film.