Ruas de Fogo

In this dark musical drama a soldier of fortune must rescue his former girlfriend after she is kidnapped by a motorcycle gang. This is a very dark and energetic film with an excellent soundtrack and a story that keeps you involved..it has a great cast with Amy Madigan, Rick Moranis, Diane Lane, and others ..very underrated and ahead of its time on a scale of one to ten...7

I seems that not everyone understands the greatness with this movie? -The actors do a really good work-Moranis is one, and Pare is good, but he has much less to play with as a carachter. -style is everything here: the lines are like they where stolen from old westerns or movies from the 50s. To really enjoy this movie: do not expect the ordinary action...see it as a "musical" set in a theatre and admire the artificial "artsiness" of this studio-style film! ...the bad guys are really bad...but funny, -and the good guy is really brave... -This is not suppose to be your ordinary action movie! -This is art...and poetry!

Best Regards

/MadvikinS

This is a brilliant film that is much more than it should be because of one genius director - Walter Hill.

He understands and sets the tone and world of this pic perfectly - it has straight-forward, old-western style dialouge, clear good and bad characters and rip-roaring action that reminds you of the old classic westerns that Walter Hill admittedly loves, in particular the Searcher's.

I won't say much about the plot expect for a badboy returns home rescue the girl he once loved after she is kidnapped by a leather-clad motorcycle gang. It's pretty simple but what you have to watch out for here is Walter Hill's visual and editorial style which was probably the best around in the eighties.

There isn't any Oscar-worthy performances here but there was never meant to be none - Michael Pare does well with his limited John Wayne modelled role, Rick Moranis shows that he can play much more than the "nerdy-neurotic" character that made him world famous in the early nineties, William Defoe plays a better villain in this than he did in Spiderman and Diane Lane shows that she was once, the hottest woman in Hollywood (she still ain't too bad today!).

This film deserves more credit, votes, attention and DVD extra's than it presently has - definitely one of the best film's of the eighties.

Walter Hill, whose fine directorial achievements include "Hard Times", "The Warriors", "Southern Comfort", "Crossroads", "Johnny Handsome" and "Extreme Prejudice", scored another creative bullseye with this self-proclaimed "rock and roll fable". Though it is simplistic in the extreme, it is an extraordinarily kinetic work with great music, stunning cinematography, cutting edge editing (from Hill regular Freeman Davies) and fantastic production design.

From a purely visual perspective, it was way ahead of its time, and like most things that were ahead of their time, it flopped badly (at the box office). So much of the film is worthy of praise -- the opening credit sequence employs a bravura graphic technique that has been much imitated; the kidnapping of Ellen Aim (Diane Lane) is a stunningly staged sequence, as is Lane's mimed rendition of Jim Steinman's fabulous "Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young". The climactic fight sequence between Michael Pare and Willem Dafoe (in one of his first screen roles) is magical, as are all the film's scenes of physical combat.

Hill makes mean, lean, muscular movies and populates them with both fresh faces and screen vets. Michael Pare, who had a limited career, is just fine as the mythical Tom Cody, the film's reluctant hero (is there any other?). Dafoe shines as Raven Shaddock, the lead of the kidnappers, and the MIA Amy Madigan is just terrific as the tough-talking McCoy, Pare's feisty sidekick.

Andrew Laszlo, who worked with Hill on "Southern Comfort" and even shot Tobe Hooper's "The Funhouse", does a knockout job with the cinematography and, working with ace production designer John Vallone (another Hill reg) creates a magnificent retro universe on the Universal backlot.

Not to be missed!

After about 25 years, I finally watched this underrated Walter Hill film that not only had several action sequences but also a few complete musical performances that just blew my breath away. I mean, seeing Diane Lane in the opening and closing numbers were some of the most awesome scenes in this movie. By the way, that's not her singing but that of Holly Sherwood. Another singer, Laurie Sargent, also dubs her in another musical segment. Her, I remember from the video "10-9-8" with her group Face to Face, who portray Lane's group The Attackers, whenever it showed on the TBS weekend late night music video compilation show "Night Tracks" during the '80s. Anyway, Michael Pare plays the antihero lead Tom Cody who agrees to rescue former flame Ellen Aim (Ms. Lane's character) from the clutches of Raven Shaddock (Willem Dafoe) for a price. Rick Moranis-as Aim's manager Billy Fish-agrees to provide the dough while Amy Madigan-as the tough-as-nails McCoy-tags along. Along the way, we meet Cody's sister Reva (Deborah Van Valkenburgh), Clyde the Bartender (Bill Paxton), Bill Gunn-the guy who reveals where Ellen and Raven are (Ed Begley, Jr.), Greer-one of the members of Shaddock's gang: The Bombers (Lee Ving), and the musical group The Sorels of which two of those members are B.J. (Mykelti Willimson) and Lester (Robert Townsend). I'll stop there and just mention that I found the whole thing awesome with the look of the picture especially when they showed those subway trains that I actually rode on when I briefly went back to my birthtown of Chicago, Ill. as a 10-year-old kid in the summer of 1977. And most of the dialogue-courtesy of Hill and Larry Gross-just cackles with atmosphere, especially when Pare, Madigan, and especially Moranis put in their two cents as their characters. In fact, this is quite a departure for the latter as he usually is more comically nerdy compared to the more straight character he plays here though he gets some point-on wisecracks. And all the songs are just so great especially when they're written by such luminaries as Lieber & Stoller, Stevie Nicks, and Jim Steinman. And what about that score by Ry Cooder with some help by Jimmy Iovine! In summation, Streets of Fire was just such a cool movie to watch so that's a high recommendation. P.S. One of those great songs was "I Can Dream About You" which The Sorels lip-synced to Winston Ford's vocals though the single release was performed by that song's writer, Dan Hartman, who was previously known for singing on The Edgar Winter Group's "Free Ride" as well as the Disco hit, "Instant Replay". The dancer on the table at Torchie's was one Marine Jahan who the previous year was revealed to be Jennifer Beals' dance double in Flashdance. Besides knowing Moranis from "SCTV" and some other movies and Ed Begley, Jr. from "St. Elsewhere", I also recognized Deborah Van Valkenburgh from "Too Close for Comfort" and Lee Ving as the lead singer of the punk band Fear when they appeared on "Saturday Night Live". And since I just mentioned that I was born in Chicago, I also feel like noting the other players that came from there: Amy Madigan-who graduated from Marquette University which is where one of my younger sisters also finished school, Robert Townsend, and Kathy Griffin who appears as a concert goer here.