Rumble Fish

Set in an indiscriminate time and place, Francis Coppola's "Rumble Fish" looks like a cross between "Rebel Without a Cause" and "The Last Picture Show". Matt Dillon, used mainly for his James Dean-like sneer and bravado, plays rebellious younger brother to legendary, motorcycle-riding hellraiser Mickey Rourke, now living in a seedy dive with a heroin-shooting girl. Coppola, too closely following up S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" with this darker-tinged Hinton material, creates crystalline perfection with his black-and-white images--arty but not abstract, and visually quite satisfying--but the pacing flags early without any charismatic characters. The cast (with Dillon, Diane Lane, and Nicolas Cage in particular looking so youthful and eager) is a terrific ensemble, but partnered with this barbed, impenetrable script, the actors come off as blank dolts. The results are artificial in every sense, though not uninteresting. *1/2 from ****

Francis Ford Coppola's most personal film is also one of his best - in its own way just as good as APOCALYPSE NOW and THE GODFATHER films. Those who wonder why Mickey Rourke is so revered by cult film fans need look no further than his almost-hypnotic performance as The Motorcycle Boy. But Matt Dillon is just as good as his younger brother, and when you also have the likes of Nic Cage, Diane Lane, Dennis Hopper, Laurence Fishburne, and Chris Penn in the supporting cast, you know it's a once-in-a-lifetime movie. The look of the film - a sparse black-and-white urban landscape - is perfect, as is Stewart Copeland's atmospheric music. But aside from the visual and aural pyrotechnics, what really singles this out as a bona fide classic is its spot-on portrayal of disaffected youth. When Hopper describes to Dillon how Rourke has simply been "miscast in the play", I still feel shivers running down my spine...