Rumble Fish - 1983
Director - Francis Ford Coppola
Stars - Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke and Diane Lane

Plot:

The story follows Rusty James (Matt Dillon) a street thug trying to live up to the reputaion of his older brother 'The Motorcycle Boy' and gain respect from his fellow gang members.  After getting stabbed in a fight his brother appeirs to take care of him and events that follow lead to his delosioned world to start crumbeling around him.  With the help of his detatched and dostant brother Rusty James starts to put his life back on track and into perspective to give it greater meaning.

With a cast list full of stars including Dennis Hopper, Chris Penn, Nicholas Cage and others I had high hopes for this film.  This could have easily been a basic gang based film with lots of knife fights but with Coppola's influence he slowed the tempo of the film down and used sleek cinematography holding the lengths of shots extracting more emotion from the characters.  The use of black and white adds to the dark bleakness to the film which reflects on Rusty James's state of mind, but there are dashes of colour throughout the film.  Along with thius is the setting there is no setting that realy stands out of any recognition which again shows the void which Rusty James is stuck in with no snese of meaning to his life. 

This moodey character study showed good promise for many of the young actors involved in the film amd big performances from both Dillon and Rourke.  I did enjoy the slow tempo throughout the film and the distant atmosphere both rourke (through his acting) and Coppola created on screen.