Rumble Fish Review
Rumble Fish is one of a number of projects Francis Ford Coppola has agreed to direct during his long career either to help finance a future project or cover for the excesses of a past one. But that doesn't mean it was just tossed off; in fact, Coppola comes across as downright ambitious, shooting in black-and-white with all manner of camera angles, close-ups, and extreme depths of field. The result is a stylized fairy tale about wasted youth, rebelliousness, and the desire to exude cool, which received critical attention for its original production design. Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke are excellent choices to portray the central hothead delinquent and the detached brother he idolizes, both archetypes in a nowhere town that recalls the small Texas hamlet of Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show. Coppola was of course able to command a first-rate supporting cast that included some of his past collaborators (including Laurence Fishburne, then known as "Larry," and Dennis Hopper from Apocalypse Now) as well as early appearances from several future Hollywood mainstays (Nicolas Cage and Chris Penn). But the acting is hardly the focus in this film, as Coppola is far more interested in creating a fantasy world involving shadow play, time-lapse photography, and thematic bursts of color breaking up the chiaroscuro design. While occasionally pretentious, Rumble Fish is a visually interesting slice of dead-end America life, featuring a cast that will forever register it as a curiosity worth seeking out. Derek Armstrong, Rovi
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