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Rating: I was walking through the already lit streets of the late afternoon, and the timid footsteps on the sidewalk were a light mist in my thoughts. Neon lights, signs, and colors filled the avenue stoically. Despite it all, the static gnawing of bygone days. And that strange sense of inadequacy that opened a path from belly to head, emptied me at a crossroads like a vise tightening around the throat. The pet shop window managed to shake my attention: I found the condition of the hamsters in cages unique and theatrical. The monotonous run on the cage, eating, sleeping, and watching us with those small, lively eyes as if we were the fish in the aquarium. Part of a humanity pre-established from birth, each one a child and victim of their own role. No autonomous rules, no needless altruism..'Fighting fish', just that.
Rusty-James (Matt Dillon) is the leader of a youth gang in an unspecified and timeless place in the United States (Tulsa, Oklahoma), following in the footsteps of the mythologized older brother 'Motorcycle Boy' (an iconic Mickey Rourke). The 'motorcycle boy' in voluntary exile from his turbulent past, in the California valley of an utopian Eden. Distant, alien to his old role as the 'pre-established' leader of local groups of misfit boys. Around Rusty, and his bleeding wound for much of the film, characters and states of more or less conscious hallucination move; like the German expressionism of the warm b/w, through which passes the 'colorblind' viewpoint of Motorcycle Boy.. The meeting at 'moderator' Benny's bar (Tom Waits) and Smokey (Nicolas Cage, Coppola's nephew), the slightly sleazy companion who will betray him with his disappointed girlfriend Patty (a splendid and eighteen-year-old Diane Lane). Steve, the serious and bespectacled friend, critical of the 'system' of gangs; and the violence generated by rivalry for city supremacy. Faithful to his notepad, Steve notes everything, every instant and moment alongside Rusty-James: practically the third 'eye' of the story after the two protagonist brothers. The drunken ex-lawyer father, who drags himself to live between diners and the miseries of the suburban landscape (played by Dennis Hopper, a 'rebel' legend in a story of rebels). Finally, like a menacing and oppressive shadow in the background, the figure of the merciless, stubborn cop who has an unsettled score with the 'uncomfortable' Motorcycle Boy and his years as a 'Pied Piper'.
Amidst all this, amidst the unwavering squalor of the city, roam Rusty and his brother. Like post-modern replicants of an ongoing social mutation, they search for each other, confront each other, and the questions almost never have a comforting, defined answer. The 'motorcycle boy' who returns at the most dramatic moment for Rusty, during a bloody fight with the fierce opposing gang; in which, although a victor, he will get the painful wound to the stomach. Motorcycle Boy, 'myth' of a now dying world where past and present blur and look into a distorting mirror. A corroded reality in continuous transformation, with the 'old' leader as the wise and disillusioned witness of a dying, consumed season. That will not return. Thus a survivor, Motorcycle Boy: the only true 'pure', an idealist who has taken refuge in his personal Utopia. Beyond any scheme or imposed rule, outside those cages that annihilate us. And make too free, sensitive souls rot. All that's left is to open those cages, Motorcycle Boy, and enter the night with Rusty-James in the pet shop..Your damned red 'fighting fish', for a moment colored like in a vivid and new dream, you have to free them in the stubborn river, boy, and realize your childish intent. It doesn't matter if you, 'wild' motorcyclist, will practically sign your suicide. You don't care if you get killed by the hated cop, by the law that wants you in the 'cage', and has been waiting for nothing else. Motorcycle Boy who will suffer for everyone his malaise, and that of his generation: then releasing the 'fighting fish' of the original title also means finally giving peace and space to the 'rebels' condemned by society, to those (like the so-called 'rumble fishes') who in captivity are violent and come to clash with their own image, with themselves.
Francis Ford Coppola finished filming 'Rumble Fish' ('Rumble Fish') along with the twin and specular 'The Outsiders' of 1983. But in truth, compared to this latter classic and ordinary film following the style of a genre (which had found its peak in the years of James Dean), it represents a completely and deliberately rewritten acid version by the Author. As conventional tribute to the Fifties aimed at the market was 'The Outsiders', so much 'Rumble Fish' has a strong aesthetic, experimental looking at Welles, Soviet and German cinema of the early Twentieth century, and surrealism. Askew shots, reversed and distorted perspectives: a destructured reality, then recomposed by Coppola. Among those clouds in the opening titles that pass quickly, in the syncopated and engaging rhythm of Stewart Copeland's music, in an 'other' time dissociated from the narrative of the work. Those passing clouds, like Rusty-James, the neo 'motorcycle boy' before the sea waves and the flight of seagulls..Like us.
It's evening, a soft breeze makes me huddle my shoulders, and I turn my gaze away from the pet window. I retrace my cold steps homewards and occasionally think back to the sad hamster under the observation of strangers. We all have our cages, small or large, the important thing is to find a reason, a motive to open them and show ourselves to the world for what we really are. Without fears or restrictions, nor the doubt of taking a leap into the void. And to be able to free, once and for all, our 'fighting fish' into the river.. "Motorcycle Boy Reigns".
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