Rumble Fish: The Only Way Is Up

Francis Ford Coppola and S.E. Hinton palled together to pen the screenplay from the latter's hidden gem of a novel, "Rumble Fish", one of the many successors of a classic, The Outsiders, and honestly, this portrait is packed with just as much quality, serving as the big brother of the popular hit.

Despite the more adult nature of the film (like drugs, nudity, profanity and sex) that wasn't featured heavily in The Outsiders, it also offered a gritty realism to the charmingly black-and-white picture that revolves around a gang lifestyle. Clearly there is a tougher and more intense atmosphere to this film and I found myself appreciating it on a thoughtful level.

There are many familiar faces, if observation is one's forte, with a plethora of soon-to-be cinematic sensations and some returning up-and-comers that were also featured in The Outsiders. Notably featured is a groovy-looking Nicolas Cage and a ravishing Diane Lane, along with a young Laurence Fishburne and a delightful Sofia Coppola as Lane's younger sister. These appearances help melt the viewer into the atmosphere even more deeply because it provides a sense of familiarity. While the characters have changed, the charisma has been preserved.

The picture is carried by surly Matt Dillon, not too far from the tree of Dallas Winston, and his performance as Rusty James is simply magnetic. His talent for showing emotion streams along more fluidly than it was able to during his limited role in The Outsiders. He's the younger brother of a gang hero of old, infamously known as The Motorcycle Boy (a rallying and supporting role owned by a mousy, seductive and young Mickey Rourke), and clearly struggles to live up to his big brother's legendary stature. He's an emotional wreck and Dillon portrays it flawlessly. He doesn't see a purpose in education and self-loathes over the sudden abandonment of his mother and lack of connection with his distant older brother. Fighting is his escape and there is no end or grasp of salvation in sight other than not coming home alive to his drunken father.

I personally sympathized for poor Rusty, but the picture does not share the feeling. His struggle isn't lessened by fourth-wall empathy, but is rather blatant and meant to serve as a blunt truth. His life is only filled with temporal pleasures and is only steepening by the minute. One would think the sudden return of his ghostly older brother of Motorcycle Boy fame would offer some tranquility, but all it does is further aggravate Rusty's poor emotional state of mind. He keeps getting hurt, revealing the pain and lack of fulfillment that eats away at him internally.

Once The Motorcycle Boy arrives, the audience is handed another plate of trepidation. Rourke's performance is detached, nonchalant and wistful, a perfect capture of a discouraged ex-gang hero now struggling to swallow his frivolous past. Disjointed, their brotherly bond never quite blossoms but towards the conclusion provides a single spark of hope for the younger Rusty, in exchange for inevitable tragedy, to do as his older brother could not.

The film is laced with cloudy visuals, mystifying and quaint. It is as if the entire boxed world of Rumble Fish is in a haze, puzzled as to where it should look for absolution and clarity. This visual overlay epitomizes Rusty's inner turmoil, along with the numbed suffering of The Motorcycle Boy. Along with bouncy music, all of this artistry provides a soothing counter to the somewhat depressing material of the plot. It's a downer in some ways, but the conclusion more than makes up for it.

There is beautiful symbolism used throughout and metaphor after metaphor only captivates the viewer even more. From wishes of liberation that inspire us to defy one's own entrapped existence, hopefully ambivalent embraces of one's own individuality... then finally of pitying expressions that ooze compassion and warmth shown by the most unlikely of phantoms, I was pulled into this day-to-night-to-day straggler's tale and Rumble Fish definitely achieves what it sets out to do. A hidden gem, indeed. In tribute to The Outsiders and the Robert Frost poem, this film reminded me of how, "Nothing Gold Can Stay" yet it does not mean as well that we cannot strive to discover a little bit of treasure for ourselves to weather the storm of our dreary lives.

All we need to find is a bit of color. "Saying ain't doing" and we just need to "see the ocean."