Following up the success that the team of director Francis Ford Coppola and writer S.E. Hinton had with The Outsiders, they decide to team up to film another one of Hinton's teen angst novel Rumble Fish. The title refers to some tropical fish in a pet store that fascinate Mickey Rourke. The fish are the only ones in the film photographed in color, a technique that was later used in Schindler's List.
Those fish are Siamese fighting fish and it's their nature to tear each other to pieces which is why they're kept in separate tanks. Of course I'm sure they must mate some time to keep the species going. But they fight like they breathe as apparently Rourke as the former street gang member who has returned to the dingy midwest rust belt city where he grew up in.
Where Rourke's younger brother Matt Dillon has a reputation as the toughest street fighter out there in the new generation. Will he turn his life around or become another version of Rourke? I'm not sure the film totally answers that in the end, it's one of those you can draw your own conclusions.
Diane Lane as Dillon's girlfriend and Vincent Spano as the nerd kid who hangs around the gang members and functions as Dillon's sidekick are also in the cast. Further down the list is future Oscar winner and Coppola family member Nicholas Cage as another gang member. The most prominent adult cast members are Dennis Hopper as the alcoholic father to Rourke and Dillon and William Smith, one mean cop with a score to settle with Rourke who's not pleased to have him back.
The film does have it's violence quotient for a film about youth violence, but in fact it's a character study. The characters are good and the players do a fine job. I don't think it's half as good as S.E. Hinton's other film The Outsiders from Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Glenn Withrow as another gang member and rival to Matt Dillon were also in.
Still Rumble Fish is a film that will appeal to the younger generation and to those who were the younger generation when Rumble Fish first was on the big screen.
Those fish are Siamese fighting fish and it's their nature to tear each other to pieces which is why they're kept in separate tanks. Of course I'm sure they must mate some time to keep the species going. But they fight like they breathe as apparently Rourke as the former street gang member who has returned to the dingy midwest rust belt city where he grew up in.
Where Rourke's younger brother Matt Dillon has a reputation as the toughest street fighter out there in the new generation. Will he turn his life around or become another version of Rourke? I'm not sure the film totally answers that in the end, it's one of those you can draw your own conclusions.
Diane Lane as Dillon's girlfriend and Vincent Spano as the nerd kid who hangs around the gang members and functions as Dillon's sidekick are also in the cast. Further down the list is future Oscar winner and Coppola family member Nicholas Cage as another gang member. The most prominent adult cast members are Dennis Hopper as the alcoholic father to Rourke and Dillon and William Smith, one mean cop with a score to settle with Rourke who's not pleased to have him back.
The film does have it's violence quotient for a film about youth violence, but in fact it's a character study. The characters are good and the players do a fine job. I don't think it's half as good as S.E. Hinton's other film The Outsiders from Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Glenn Withrow as another gang member and rival to Matt Dillon were also in.
Still Rumble Fish is a film that will appeal to the younger generation and to those who were the younger generation when Rumble Fish first was on the big screen.