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the audience applauded

So much average

Best movie ever!

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

It's a shame that Rumble Fish has gone under the radar for so long. It's a special film that I honestly think is a little bit better than Outsiders. Hold down the pitchforks! I still love Outsiders; I just feel that the addition of a couple cast members (Nicolas Cage in particular) really helped in elevating the material.

Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish is a gorgeous, star studded look at street hoodlums of the 1950s. It's based on the book by S.E. Hinton, who also wrote The Outsiders, which Coppola adapted as well. This one is a bit of a different animal though. Where one might expect a grounded, topical, straightforward script and narrative, we're instead treated to a lyrical, dense and very almost experimental tone. Characters exude archetypal charisma that is stunningly thrown off balance by the poetic, otherworldly dialogue that's at times almost inaccessible, but always mesmerizing. It's as if The Outsiders went to sleep and had a dream, functioning on a similar yet slightly unconscious plane. Once you get accustomed to such an aesthetic, it's a film to draw you in and give you poetic dreams of your own. A young Matt Dillon plays Rusty Ryan, a naive young upstart with dreams of notoriety in the worn doldrums of his neighbourhood. He lives under the intense reputation of his older brother, known only as The Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke). Rourke is at the peak of his moody blues James Dean phase here, and commands the screen with a laid back abandon and smirking charm. He gets romantically involved with angelic local beauty Patty (young Diane Lane, stunning), and deals with his lovable deadbeat father (Dennis Hopper). The scenes between Hopper, Dillon and Rourke has an easy swing to them, and the three have a lived in dynamic that strengthens their characters, individually and as a group. Rourke is under the suspicious eye of robotic, violent local cop Patterson (William Smith), who is just waiting for him to step out of line. Dillon and his thug pals, including Nicolas Cage, Chris Penn and Vincent Spano, daydream their days away pining for the oft talked about days when gang warfare was commonplace. There's a splendid supporting cast including Laurence Fishburne, Sofia Coppola, Diana Scarwid, and Tom Waits, mumbling sweet existential nothing's to himself in the local diner. The film is shot in wistful black and whites, and exists in a realm of heightened emotions where the characters all seem to be a little larger than life, but nevertheless human. There's a surreality to it though, a free flowing, dreamy vibe of Chrome on asphalt, lazy afternoons and long glances at pretty girls in the window.

Francis Ford Coppola's "Rumble Fish" is ultra-moody, visually dazzling and criminally under-appreciated. Its story of gang fights, teenage delinquency and pointless violence reflects on some of the factors that contribute to a young gang leader's deviant behaviour and illustrates how it eventually leads to disillusion, despondency and hopelessness. The events depicted on-screen are presented in a way that avoids being preachy or providing simplistic solutions and in so doing makes a strong impact.Rusty James (Matt Dillon) is a tough, teenage gang leader who feels he has something to prove because his older brother, who's known only as "The Motorcycle Boy" (Mickey Rourke), is a local legend who also used to lead his followers into neighbourhood "rumbles". Rusty James is anxious to achieve the same status as his brother but is also saddened by the passing of his town's gang culture which declined due to the rising popularity of heroin. When he's told that a rival gang leader has challenged him to a fight, he enthusiastically accepts even though doing so means breaking an agreement previously made by his brother to ban any further fights between local gangs.Rusty James spends part of the evening with his girlfriend Patty (Diane Lane) before going with his other gang members to the abandoned garage lot where he takes on and beats his opponent just as "The Motorcycle Boy" (who'd returned from a two month absence in California) arrives on the scene. When he's temporarily distracted by the arrival of his brother, Rusty James is attacked and badly injured by his opponent who gashes him with a shard of glass. "The Motorcycle Boy" who is the epitome of cool responds by bringing the conflict to an end with devastating speed and efficiency.Things continue to go downhill for Rusty James as he gets expelled from school, dumped by Patty and disappointed that his brother is no longer interested in taking part in any gang activity and then to make matters worse, it's made abundantly clear to him that his gang members don't have any confidence in him as their leader.The visual style of this film contributes strongly to its offbeat atmosphere with high-angle shots, good use of fog and smoke and some magnificent expressionistic cinematography being particularly effective. Additionally, there are numerous visual compositions which feature figures or objects in the very near foreground that also work extremely well.Rusty James is the product of a dysfunctional home with an absentee mother and an alcoholic father but his own failure at everything he's involved in is also attributable to the fact that he's simply not as bright as his brother. Similarly, his flawed judgement leads him to hero-worship his brother and nostalgically believe that the town's old gang culture represented something noble and meaningful. His brother, however, is also consumed by the hopelessness of his existence as he tries desperately to distance himself from his past and like Rusty James sees nothing meaningful in his future.The influence of the past, the loss of hope and the relentless passing of time (represented visually by high-speed clouds and clocks etc.) are all important themes of this movie and the metaphor of the tropical fish in a pet shop that fight with their own reflection is also particularly strong.Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke are both perfect in their roles and the supporting cast (which includes Nicolas Cage, Laurence Fishburne, Tom Waits and Diane Lane) is also excellent.

This is a message movie. Everything in this movie is meant to have deep, symbolic meaning. The problem is: trying to decipher those meanings. If a story cannot be understood, then the movie loses its value as drama. The principal character, Rusty James, is a young man trying to find himself. The setting for the story is surrealistic, which gives the movie a certain off-beat avant-garde quality. Although a wise-guy, Rusty James has certain endearing qualities, which makes him someone with whom the audience can empathize. The movie is about consciousness-raising. When his older brother, played by Mickey O'Rourke, enters the story, Rusty James is forced is deal with the emptiness of his life. To find out how he deals with that revelation, watch the movie.