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After Anabasis (The Warriors), Helen of Troy. "Another time, another place," the Fifties according to the Eighties through a futuristic filter, a socko flurry (neon smear on wet asphalt, wipes and freeze-frames, Willem Dafoe's Nosferatu mug in the nightclub audience) to announce the style. A motorcycle gang snatches the songbird (Diane Lane) right off the concert stage, her old flame (Michael Paré) arrives on a staccato Bo Diddley beat for the rescue mission. Two-fisted sidekick (Amy Madigan) and hipster-nerd promoter (Rick Moranis) come along, the raid on the industrial Gomorrah is just the thing for soldiers who ran out of wars, the demonic bruiser swears revenge. "Looks like I finally ran into someone that likes to play as rough as I do." Crimson convertibles, juveniles with weary souls, diners that become brawling arenas—from muscle-headed Paré with a shotgun slung over his shoulder to Lane in elbow-length gloves before a torchy microphone, everything is icon in Walter Hill's coruscating jukebox fantasia, half retro and half alien. When the heroes take over a bus for their getaway, it's driven by doo-wop hopefuls who serenade them before busting through a police barricade. When Boy and Girl kiss at last, it's beneath a dripping elevated railway and punctuated by lightning. Benedek's The Wild One for the urban battlefield and pick-axes for the showdown, nothing but "two maniacs playing out some little game about personal honor." An extended visualization of Link Wray's "Rumble" à la Nicholas Ray (cf. The Loveless), in its way a perfect encapsulation of cinema's feverish ravishments. "You'll never know what it means, but you'll know how it feels," as the tune goes. Cinematography by Andrew Laszlo. With Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Richard Lawson, Rick Rossovich, Bill Paxton, Lee Ving, Stoney Jackson, Robert Townsend, Mykelti Williamson, and Elizabeth Daily.
--- Fernando F. Croce |