Rumble Fish

Shot back-to-back with The Outsiders, similarly based on a novel by SE Hinton, and signalled by Coppola as 'Camus for kids', Rumble Fish does indeed have a hero figure (Rourke) who belongs to a former age of existential 'outsiders', coasting through the world in an insulated state of deafness and colour blindness from too many rumbles. His kid brother (Dillon) idolises him, but is too stupid to see the damage done to all concerned by the continuous gang-fights of frightful violence but no importance. All of which is all very well; but Coppola's recent viewing seems to have been German silent films of the '20s, so he has decided to coat the whole enterprise in a startling Expressionist style, which is very arresting but hardly appropriate to the matter in hand. As with The Outsiders' it's very hard to picture the audience at which the film is aimed. CPea.