Rooftops

A love struck roof-dwelling combat air dancer battles criminals in a Manhattan ghetto.

From a decade of dance and pop, pre CGI, when the safety of actors doing stunts wasn't priority comes Robert Wise's Rooftops...

With plenty of F' bombs, a few chases, fights and some moves from Breakin' and The Electric Boogaloo, the tone is inconsistent, it unrealistically sugar-coats the grim realities facing homeless teenagers. Wise echoes the atmosphere of New York reminiscent of like of The Equalizer TV series, Death Wish 2 and Wild Thing to name a few. Writers Allan A. Goldstein, Tony Mark and Terrence Brennan touch on abuse, gang crime and other serious problems of the day, many of which are still issues.

The pacing is slow pace and plot thin but the cast are more than competent, leads Troy Byer Jason Gedrick are solid. Alexis Cruz is notable. However, the real star of the show is the location. With a fitting score and soundtrack, Wise offers the New York streets, abandoned buildings and 80s skyline. Showing the contrasting rich to the ghetto poor.

Worth a watch if only from a nostalgia or time capsule perspective.

I have watched this movie over and over since it first came out. I was fifteen and even then, I knew it was cheesy. It had such great potential and I constantly rewrite the script in my head. The Capoeira ruined what could have been a good drama. I loved the fact that it was shot on location. Too bad that the characters were underdeveloped. It's like they wrote a first draft of a script then made the movie right away. At fifteen I could have written a better script!Some scenes and dialog seemed to come out of nowhere and you were left with a lot of unanswered questions. And was it just me, or did it seem like Lobo was sexually attracted to his cousin? "Elena's grown into some kind of woman!" And the way he was always touching her. Would have an interesting plot twist, Elena working for her drug dealing cousin who is also a perv. Too bad they missed the mark on this one.

Awful songs, crummy acting, Troy Beyer the babe, "combat dancing", living in a water tower, this one's got everything for the bad movie 80's fanatic. I rented it once, loved it, & bought it off E-bay for $1. Worth every penny.

One a scale of 1 to 5 stars, with one star being the lowest & 5 stars being the highest, I rate this one an A-. . .

Maybe this film was actually directed by Sheldon Lettitch or Dwight Little - directors from the eighties who worked with JCVD and Steven Seagal. When I watched this film, I had the very same feeling as when I saw Henry Hathaway's last flick: HANG UP; I said to myself: Oh, My God, I can't believe it !!! Was that really from the great director of LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER? So, here, in this supposed WEST SIDE STORY - same director for those who would not know - rip-off, with Lower Side New York City street gangs tale, with dances and hoodlum rivalries, I had also the same reaction in my brain, a chemical and brutal shock, to realize that it was made by the great Robert Wise. His last theatrical feature.... But he will give is eleven years later, and for TV, a sweet and stunning drama starring Peter Falk: STORM IN THE SUMMER.

Rooftops is sort of Robert Wise's version of his West Side Story set in the eighties. The film has capoeria, karate and street fights. The film featured many young actors like Jason Gedrick, Tisha Campbell and Allen Payne. I like this movie though.