Nowhere fast

Streets of Fire

(1984)

A rock & roll fable, per the subtitle--a fable set in whatever American city has the densest network of the least-crowded elevated trains. There's a Battery, but it's not that Battery, and there's a Richmond, but it's "the Richmond," and the trains go there, so it ain't Staten Island. Wherever it is (unsurprisingly, Chicago is the location for the els, Los Angeles for most everything else) and whenever it is, it's a rock & roll city of '50s hairstyles and a late-'70s-early-'80s tough chick singer (Diane Lane, whose numbers are so strong that it was a real disappointment to see in the end credits that she was lip-syncing) whose kidnapping by a motorcycle gang led by Willem Dafoe--setting the visual style precedent for the Twilight vampire dude--incites the action. No, really.

A pretty bad film, directed by Walter Hill between 48 Hrs. and Brewster's Millions. Pretty bad, but not boring, and probably not forgettable.