steven@ism70.UUCP (06/06/84)
#N:ism70:13100011:000:2356 ism70!steven May 30 11:24:00 1984 Review from Lotusland: From _D_a_i_l_y_ _V_a_r_i_e_t_y Wednesday May 30 STREETS OF FIRE Starring Michael Pare, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis and Amy Madigan. Directed by Walter Hill. Screenplay by Hill and Larry Gross. Produced by Lawrence Gordon and Joel Schiller. Photographed by Andrew Laszlo. Production Designed by John Vallone. Edited by Freeman Davies and Michael Ripps. Music by Ry Cooder. From Universal Pictures. 98 minutes. (1984) If there's a market for a theatrical that performs like a full-length music video, _S_t_r_e_e_t_s_ _o_f_ _F_i_r_e might ignite a trend. Boxoffice projection for this rock 'n roll fable is cautionary in the extreme, however, because youth crowds addicted to MTV will likely continue to favor films that explore more than a panache of style and sound. Assembled by the team that created the hit _4_8_ _H_r_s_., pic is a pulsing, throbbing orchestration careening around the rescue of a kidnapped young singer. The decor is urban squalor. The film alternately, and sometimes simultaneously, suggests the rhythm and texture of _B_l_a_d_e_ _R_u_n_n_e_r,_ _E_s_c_a_p_e_ _f_r_o_m_ _N_e_w_ _Y_o_r_k and Hill's own _T_h_e_ _W_a_r_r_i_o_r_s. Soundtrack album is terrific. Film has 10 original songs -- by Stevie Nicks, Jim Steinman, Ry Cooder (who scored) and The Blasters, among others -- and musically, the film is continually hot. Lyrics chart the concerns of the narrative line, simplistic as it is. Film also has undeniable texture. Smoke, neon, rainy streets, platforms of elevated subway lines, alleys and warehouses create an urban inferno in an unspecified time and place. But all form and no content is boring. There is no characterizaton to speak of, except in the case of Rick Moranis as an edgy and subtly humorous foil to the dead-ahead performances of Diane Lane as the kidnapped singer, Michael Pare as her former boyfriend and tough, handsome rescuer, and Amy Madigan as an adventurer in tow. But the story is so deliberately thin, so tiresome a parody of action-romance films, than the exercise turns cynical very quickly. Briefly seen as a stripper-dancer in the Bomber's scumbag of a hangout (where The Blasters perform "One Bad Stud") is Marine Jahan, who was the uncredited dancer in _F_l_a_s_h_d_a_n_c_e.