A fanciful and fascinating hybrid, directed by Walter Hill. Although superficially this would appear to be a return for Hill to the street-gang turf of The Warriors, it, even more clearly than that other, is a transplanted Western. Where the narrative pattern of the earlier movie was the simple passage through hostile territory, the pattern here is the rescue of a Captive White Woman therefrom, with a motorcycle gang called The Bombers doing duty as the Indians or Bandidos or Savages-of-Your-Choice, and a rock-and-roll singer named Ellen Aim (played, but not sung, by Diane Lane) as the woman in distress. But the time into which this Western has been transplanted is not exactly, or merely, our own. Again like The Warriors and again superficially, Streets of Fire belongs to that somewhat stubby branch of science fiction which assumes no further advance of our present society, only decline and decay. One thing, clearly, that has not advanced beyond its present state is pop music, which brings us to the movie's self-classification, not as some sort of science-fictional Western, but as a "rock-and-roll fable." Certainly the iconography of the movie derives from the rock-and-roll grab-bag: motorcycles, custom cars, Walking in the Rain, My Boyfriend's Back, and, unavoidably, a rumble. And the movie gives very full expression to the melodramatic passions roused by a certain type of rock-and-roll. It does so, moreover, with as sensitive a feel for narrative rhythm as for the musical kind, and the result is swift and beautifully proportioned storytelling. With Michael Paré, Amy Madigan, and Rick Moranis. (1984) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.