Straight to Hell
by Alex Cox
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Courtney Love, Dick Rude, Gloria Miralles Ruiz, Joe Strummer, Sy RichardsonDirector: Alex Cox
Writer: Dick Rude
Cinematographer: Tom Richmond
Writer: Alex Cox
Producer: Cary Brokaw
Producer: Eric Fellner
Producer: Paul Raphael
Producer: Scott Millaney
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 86 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-04-24
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Movie Reviews of Straight to Hell
Movie Review: Hysterically funny reviews
Summary: 5 Stars
Yup, this film--which happens to be one of my all-time faves--is not for everyone. Way back a bit before Sting and Bono gave a whole new meaning to the idea of pompous jerk, British punker musicians brought a real Midlands working class sense of irony and absurdity to the world--often not only through their music but through their stage chatter. Some of the flat-out funniest people I've ever encountered were punkers from the Eighties. The single-most un-funny human I've ever known was a major league grunge performer, and let's not even go near modern rappers and the whole EMO phenomenon. In other words, if you're a Post-Eighties kid this movie probably won't work well for you as you're probably soaked in earnest and dreary. A Brit recently told me that Americans have totally lost their sense of irony. There you have it.
The premise of this film was brilliant--let's take a bunch of Brit rockers to Spain (because a concert gig in Central America fell through), write a script in two days, and make a Spaghetti Western using a dilapidated old set from the early 70's. This couldn't happen today for a variety of reasons, one being that a bunch of musicians with any public reputation wouldn't put up with the lousy accommodations in order to have a bit of fun. Then there's that sense of humor thing again, I can't think of any performer today who could pull off what (just to give a few examples) Joe Strummer and all the Pogues do here. They probably lived on Pepsi and hot dogs for the three weeks it took to shoot this wonder, and they probably didn't give a hoot. And then again, this couldn't have happened back then with American punkers who tended to be snots. I think we stopped being funny a long time ago.
The pace is slow because the film does a great job of emulating its models; mainly those classic Clint Eastwood films. So there. However, it's beyond mere parody and there's plenty of terrific slapstick and just goofy humor all the way through the flick. It's one of those films where there are almost too many memorable vignettes--a bit where Strummer is in a clinch with a gal and his gun accidentally goes off and he has to fake having been bitten by a snake is, for me, one of the classic funny moments in film. The soundtrack alone (at least until kids who are easily bored started writing reviews for Amazon) was, for many years, considered to be classic. The, uh, "violence" is farcical and hardly graphic; also, to have fun, they scrupulously avoided obscenity and nudity in the film, which is what everybody expected from this gang. I understand it got an R rating almost by accident.
Anyway, I love Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, and all those screwball comedies of the 1930's and this film is one of my favorites. Elsewhere in Amazonia another youngster expresses her boredom over the Cary Grant collection that includes "The Awful Truth"--a flick that rivals Shakespeare. Need I write more?
Some day, when all us tedious Americans who think humor is sadism, making fun of people, and/or doing disgusting things (the lowest forms of humor by the way) are all dead and gone, and the country is full of newcomers who can find genuine joy and laughter in things, this film will be regarded as a classic.
[Raegen Butcher down below gets it dead right by describing this film as a people-sorter in the manner of "Big Trouble in Little China"--a gem that is for me up there with "Gone With the Wind" and "Citizen Kane." I generally find that anyone who doesn't like "Big Trouble" or this flick puts ME to sleep in minutes. And while I'm at it, what's with these one-star reviews because something bores you? Everybody I know under the age of thirty these days is bored by anything that isn't exploding in their faces. It tells me more about the reviewer than the product being reviewed]
Summary of Straight to Hell
DVD, featuring Sy Richardson (Actor), Joe Strummer (Actor), Alex Cox (Director).Similar DVD Movies
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