• Directed by: Walter Hill
• Written by: Larry Gross, Walter Hill
• Release Date: June 1, 1984
• 93 Minutes

Tonight is what it means to be young...

     Neon lights. Fantastic music. 80s and 50s mash-up. Willem Dafoe in a leather overall get-up. The story of a singer kidnapped by a biker gang and her subsequent rescue by the team of her ex-boyfriend and an awesome mechanic/ex-soldier, the title card at the beginning of the movie claims this to be ‘A Rock & Roll Fable” and it is 100% adequate.

     It’s kind of funny writing about Streets of Fire these days based purely on the retro 80s love that’s usually floating around in entertainment these days. Also, I have a personal connection with the film. I was super into the 80s as a kid. Loved the music, films, neon-colourful aesthetics, everything. I also was loving films in general, slowly working into the phase of my life where I paid more attention to what I was watching and, in turn, starting to write because I loved story-telling and the like. Then, one day, I distinctly remember sitting in the dining room of the apartment we were living in at the time. I was about ten, and my mom was doing dishes in the kitchen while music was playing on the radio. I don’t fully remember the way we ended up on the topic, but I do remember her telling me that there was this movie that came out when she was in high school that she really liked, and thought I’d like it too, given the kinds of things I was into by that point.      That movie was Streets of Fire. Sure enough, I loved it.

    I remember reading somewhere years ago (unless it is purely in my imagination) that Walter Hill had said that the film was, in many ways, what he would have thought of as a perfect movie in his teen years, and it completely makes sense. There are so many elements here that you would think of being so cool when you’re younger, and I can’t help but feel like it is a big part of its appeal to me, and likely to a lot of others as well. There are chases, the whole b-movie feel of it, motorcycles, a heroes recue-journey, great music, stuff like the hero and the villain having a verbal back and forth lit by flames from buildings on fire in the background; it all just feels so perfect, especially since, currently looking at it as a 30 year-old, the movie still hasn’t worn out it’s charm, and likely never will.

     The acting may be varying degrees of what some might consider good (Dafoe is fantastic in this to the point you wish he was in it more), but that’s not what you’re here for. You’re here for the reason that so many see movies in general, sheer entertainment.      Of course, a big conversation point of Streets of Fire generally revolves around the soundtrack being great, with the movie almost very obviously belonging to Jim Steinman’s “Nowhere Fast” & “Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young”, opening and closing the film, respectively, on such spectacular highs that it’s arguable the rest of the movie doesn’t quite meet them there. It doesn’t matter though, because the whole thing is a complimentary package of charming sweetness that I wish Walter Hill and co. were able to revisit in the proposed trilogy they had in mind.     But even though we don’t have those, at least we have the neon and music of Streets of Fire.     And Willem Dafoe in those awesome leather overalls.