Streets of Fire is The Warriors’ cheesier and more musically inclined sibling. Made five years after Hill directed the beloved gang epic it’s a genre mash-up: part musical, part modern western, and self professed “Rock & Roll Fable”. Its script is a messy stew of shootouts, car explosions (my fav!), dramedy, and extraneous musical interludes. I watched Streets of Fire for Diane Lane but stayed for the music: Wagnerian rock à la Meat Loaf and schmaltz courtesy of Dan Hartman. Lane plays Ellen Aim, the lead singer of a popular band that is kidnapped during a show. On a side-note, the band’s uber 80s concert footage made me long for the days when MTV played more than Ronnie and Sammi: Love Italian Style. Any-who! Her abductor is a heavy named Raven, played by a rubber lederhosen wearing Flock of Seagulls coiffed Willem Dafoe. A bat signal in the form of a typed letter is put out to summon Aim’s ex, a tough guy in a trench named Tom (Michael Paré, me-ow.). He returns rifle in hand, teeth gritted, and one liners a plenty. Ridiculosness ensues. Is it perfect? No. But you can’t fault Hill for trying to do something different and these songs will be stuck in your head for days.
