Streets

Christina Applegate stars as, Dawn, a heroine-addicted teen-prostitute fighting for survival on the streets of Venice, whose narrow escape from a psychotic cop (Ed Lottimer) armed with an explosive home-made gun and bent on raping and slaughtering runaways, initiates a bloody pursuit through the hardened world of homeless teens.

After thwarting her attempted rape and murder, Dawn befriends Sy (David Mendenhall), a naive middle-class teen runaway and aspiring musician, who's chosen a temporary life on the streets for seemingly artistic inspiration. Dawn takes Sy under her wing and gives him a guided tour of her world, along the way their friendship of mutual dependence blossoms into youthful love.

Dawn introduces Sy to an interesting array of characters. Most notably Bob (Patrick Richwood) a heroine dealer and eccentric metaphysical philosopher obsessed with the palindromic nature of his own name and its relation to his existence. Also look for a pre-Nog Aron Eisenberg for those Deep Space 9 fans, and 2nd Unit photography by Janusz Kaminski.

"Streets" is a compelling look at the lives of the forgotten and abandon children forced into early adulthood combined competently with gripping psycho-killer action. The violence is superb Corman-esquire exploitation with a nice amount of gore, mostly due to the killer's use of a special gun capable of blasting material into oblivion. However one of the more violent executions is entirely off screen accompanied by a descriptively muffled bang.

The performances are convincing and Katt Shea's direction is outstanding. There are many inventive sequences that utilize techniques that are often misused by others. There is a first-rate use of off screen sound and dialogue, especially Bob's rants, plus a gorgeous temporal ellipsis that brings the audience from one time to the next within the same space. When watching this I was struck how the image of the motorcycle cop hunting down the innocence of a child is something that we've assigned almost icon status to the villain in Terminator 2, however this film demonstrated that same notion of a symbol of protection and justice twisted into the complete opposite -and a couple years before James Cameron's version.

This film is so underrated… why is it not on DVD???

And that one reason is Applegate's lead performance, of all things. This film is mostly typical late 80's Cali-based dramatic thriller fare, with its requisite abusive cops, rundown underpasses and throwaway dialogue.

Or is it? Christina Applegate sticks out like a sore thumb with her deeply poignant performance as the teenage hooker lead. She has at least one memorable monologue detailing how she grew up in motel bathrooms all over town while her hooker mom conducted biz with her clients next room.

She and her character honestly belong in a better film. Unfortunately, that film never materialized.

A psychotic cop in Southern California is targeting prostitutes for execution; meanwhile, a pretty blonde urchin tries getting her life together. I rented this because I was very impressed with director Katt Shea's work on the underrated "Poison Ivy" and I was not disappointed. The psycho stuff doesn't really jell with the homeless kids angle, but it's a commendable attempt to mix genres, and Christina Applegate gives a superb, surprisingly serious lead performance (her final scene in a bus depot is riveting and heart-rending). Much better than I was expecting, "Streets" is a good, hearty try at both social drama and crime thriller. **1/2 from ****

A police officer is loose on the streets killing runaway teenagers who were forced into prostitution in Venice, California. His main target is a would be victim (Applegate) who escaped.

Compelling look at homeless teenagers manages to blend in a thrilling suspense story also. Applegate is very good in the lead role, the situations are done realisticly and the direction is terrific. Very well made thriller is highly underrated.

Rated R; Extreme Violence, Lanuage, Brief Nudity, and a Sexual Situation involving teenagers.

Christina Applegate stars in her movie debut as a runaway teen who can't read. She learns about life on the streets of Venice Beach..not as bad as it sounds.. Applegate does well and the story isnt half bad..the requisite prostitute killing cop kinda pushes it though... on a scale of one to ten..a 6