Rumble Fish * * * * out of * * * * Rated R for language, violence, some sexuality, nudity, and drug content
'Rumble Fish' is one of the best movies ever made, it's ability to movie the viewer while both entertaining, and fascinating, is just one of the specialties of the movie. I thought the camera shots, and visual shots were just amazing, and stunned me. This is the only movie, to which at home, after it was over, I sat there, didn't move, and after I got out of shocked, I clapped. Just fantastic.
Matt Dillon plays Rusty James, a young man, who is faced with the shadow of his brother, and trying to live up to that shadow. He is not sure what his brother has done, to be so hated in the world they live in, nor can he understand how he can live up to his brother and be just like him. Rusty James has been living the life good until his brother, played by Mickey Rourke comes back, and shocks everyone.
Mickey Rourke (Although some say he's odd), plays his character 'The Motorcycle boy' quite well, who is the older brother of Rusty James, and has done some bad stuff in his days, and tries to tell his brother not to repeat those mistakes he did. But Rusty James wants to be his brother, but fails many times.
Their father, played well by Dennis Hopper, is a drunk, who most of the time is at the local pub drinking his heart away, and never paying attention to the kids he has left. He does love them, but loves the alcohol even more. Some nights he will spend with his kids, and some others he will ignore them. But as the others is shocked to see that his oldest son is back.
Rusty and his brother, have to overcome the shock of the town, by leaving with Rusty's friend, and going out of the town, eventually coming in contact with terror, gangs, and beer. Although it doesn't work completely, ultimately ending in an abrupt finale, that is both heart wrenching as much as it is compelling.
The characters are very well made out, with none of them being muddled, or washed out. Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke give superb performances as the two brothers on the run from their life. One has a fetish of fish, the other of life, and trying to figure out what life is. Nicholas Cage, and Dennis Hopper give excellent supporting cast as does Diane Lane as Matt Dillon's ex-girlfriend.
Francis Ford Coppola who directed classics such as The Godfather Trilogy, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Apocalypse Now, and more, strikes this film with a block of cement almost. He adapted the screenplay from J. Hilton's book, which also is well-known. Francis does a great job-directing as he does writing, and I think which makes this film even more the better.
Some may cringe at the fact that the movie is black and white, but to me it makes it even more authentic, and you get so involved in the story, you dont even recognize that the movie is in black and white, and some of the sequences with the fish are in color, and again, your so absorbed in the story, that your dont even realize that your watching a color sequence. With all these points, this film deserves all the credit it gets, and gets my pick as one of the best films ever made. See it, experience it, and relive it over and over. By the way, this is Matt Dillon's third J. Hilton film, and Francis Ford Coppola's second (following The Outsiders).
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