59
Metascore
14 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88Slant MagazineJake ColeSlant MagazineJake ColeWalter Hill’s 1984 film combines everything from seedy bars, street fights, motorcycles, beefy heavies, and tough dames in a smorgasbord of tawdry, moral-flouting clichés that distills decades of imagery that represents youth in cinema.
- 80Time OutTime OutThe message is that there is no message; if this isn't action cinema in its purest form, then it's pretty close.
- 80CineVueAdam LowesCineVueAdam LowesStreets of Fire is fairly devoid of anything resembling a cohesive plot or lacking even a shred of subtext. It exists purely as pop action cinema, sweeping you up with a fevered enthusiasm and an overpowering desire to entertain which proves incredibly difficult to resist.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertWalter Hill's Streets of Fire begins by telling us it's a rock & roll fable ... from another time, another place. The movie is right on the rock & roll, but the alternative time and place are mysteriously convincing -- especially if, like me, you believe the most beautiful post-war American cars were Studebakers.
- Its subtitle, A Rock & Roll Fable, contains all the elements Hill looked for in a movie as a teenager in the late 50s, and in 94 minutes it manages to be an urban western, a backstage rock musical and a biker flick set in an unidentified, run-down rust-belt inner city that might be yesterday or tomorrow.
- 60EmpireKim NewmanEmpireKim NewmanVery of its time but enjoyable for all that.
- 50The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet MaslinFor all its studied sultriness, the movie feels unsexy, perhaps because its inspiration is the kind of hard- hearted western that concentrates on manly combat while eschewing all sentiment.
- 50TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineVallone's production design is a knockout--the film is weakly scripted and scored.
- 50Washington PostGary ArnoldWashington PostGary ArnoldThe disappointing thing about Streets of Fire is that it can't deliver on the promise of a tangy, sexy evening of stimulation. The failure is aggravated by the exorbitant scale of the production, which seems much too lavish for an atmosphere of B-movie squalor. [01 June 1984, p.B4]