It’s a rite of passage for an aspiring filmmaker to get their friends together for a slapdash, improvised film project that answers to nothing but their own creativity.
Straight to Hell is a lot like that – it’s just that director Alex Cox was already well-established (Repo Man, Sid and Nancy) and could call on more famous friends than most of us.
After a music tour of Nicaragua to support the Sandinista revolutionaries broke down, Cox drafted these famous musicians with open calendars into making a movie with him instead.
In a very DIY or punk style, Cox and writer/director Dick Rude smashed out a script based on the movie Django Kill…if You Live, Shoot!
The cast and crew headed off to Almeria, Spain, partly filming on the sets of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western classics (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly).
With a cast of rock stars like Joe Strummer (The Clash) and Shane MacGowan (The Pogues) and film legends in cameos (Dennis Hopper and Jim Jarmusch), the movie is like a giant counter-cultural hangout.
But how did this series of inside jokes fare when it was marketed and released?
Not well.
Straight to Hell failed with the public. It was a total flop at the box office, not even making back its $1 million budget.
And critics didn’t see the inner genius. Roger Ebert, a fan of Cox’s talent, called it “a record of aimless behavior.”
But many classic arts that dare to rebel against the creative climate of their moment later find appreciation.
So is this time capsule of rock and film royalty due a new interpretation?
Let’s find out.
Is Straight to Hell a Good Movie?
Note: This review is for the director’s cut, which I believe is titled Straight to Hell Returns. This version allowed Cox to perform digital enhancements and add new stop-motion scenes.
The Plot of Straight To Hell:
When hitmen Norwood (Sy Richardson), Willy (Dick Rude), and Simms (Joe Strummer) screw up a job, they commit carjacking and drive off toward Mexico to escape retaliation from their boss, Amos Dade (Jim Jarmusch).
Velma (Courtney Love), Norwood’s pregnant wife, comes with them.
After the group robs a bank, their car breaks down in the desert. Burying their bank loot, they enter a nearby town, where they encounter frenemies the McMahon gang and eccentric townspeople.
Will Dade catch up to Norwood, Willy, and Simms? Will relations between the hitmen and the outlaws sour? And will the oddball townsfolk come to their aid or turn on them?
The Rest of the Main Cast Includes:
- Miguel Sandoval as George
- Jennifer Balgobin as Fabienne
- Sara Sugarman as Chuch
- Biff Yeager as Frank McMahon
- Shane MacGowan as Bruno McMahon
- Spider Stacy as Angel Eyes McMahon
- Terry Woods as Tom McMahon
- Kathy Burke as Sabrina
- Xander Berkeley as Preacher McMahon
- Elvis Costello as Hives, The Butler
- Del Zamora as Poncho
- Edward Tudor-Pole as Rusty Zimmerman
- Dennis Hopper as IG Farben
- Grace Jones as Sonya
- Graham Fletcher-Cook as Whitey and His Twin Brother Jeeves
- Zander Schloss as Karl
- Anne-Marie Ruddock as Molly
- Fox Harris as Kim Blousson
What’s Working Well Here:
Taking a Surreal Chance, +2 Points
The film has a script, but its scenes are as nailed down as a wobbly Gingerbread house held together with frosting. The eccentric choices, planned or improvised, set the film apart.
The town’s ice cream/hot dog vendor, Karl, is everybody’s punching bag. Despite living in a desert micro town, he creeps around with a New York-style cart.
The McMahon cowboys are addicted to coffee. They sip from Espresso cups while taking part in shootouts.
And when the town undertaker meets Velma, he walks around her like a mashup of Charlie Chaplin and a mime. He circles her, pausing to squat up and down or stand still and flail his arms like a windmill to get her attention.
The opening credits lists actor Martin Turner as a “sex and cruelty consultant” – whatever that means.
Showdown Cinematography, +3 Points
The film’s wackiness doesn’t bleed into the cinematography.
We’re on Sergio Leone’s dust-ridden, brick-town sets of Almeria. At times, Cox taps into the vaunted director’s orange-sepia aesthetic.
We get this shot of our three hitmen, a trifecta of miscreants, and the hills in the background.
Our first meeting with the McMahons could have been lifted straight from For A Few Dollars More.
And the final duel borrows heavily from Leone to fun effect. There’s one angle from just behind a pistol lifted from the opening shootout of A Fistful of Dollars. We see close-ups of the characters’ eyes as the tension builds toward a draw.
A Few Songs, +2 Points
You’d hope the film would exploit the talent of all these musicians hanging about, and to a degree, it does.
The Pogues perform The soundtrack, with Costello, Strummer, and Schloss chipping in.
It gives us some music numbers, though not what you’d expect.
There’s the campy singalong “Salsa Y Ketchup,” performed by Schloss. Watching Joe Strummer, The Pogues, Courtney Love, and other famous folk form a conga line and dance to an alphabet song like a jingle from a commercial is, in a meta way, funnier than the joke itself.
But Cait O’Riordan and The Pogues’s rendition of “Danny Boy” is a pleasant surprise inclusion, as it’s an arresting version that soars above the desert (and it’s the best ~2 minutes of the film).
The Not-as-Good Things:
Why is Velma in this Movie? -1 Point
Courtney Love’s Velma is irritating.
She shouts most of her lines. To be fair to Love, part of the problem is that most of what she’s given are howls at her husband, Norwood.
Whether this was Love’s acting choice or Cox’s desired performance, it’s grating.
She also needs more purpose. She doesn’t shine a light on Norwood’s character, nor anyone else’s. And she doesn’t affect the plot in any meaningful way.
Incoherent Conversations, -3 Points
Many lines fall flat or must be inside jokes the audience can’t comprehend.
Willy professes his affection for a McMahon girl, saying he swore he’d never love again after his cat died.
Simms and a McMahon exchange lines of nonsensical poetry, the strangest form of flirting.
He says the desert is beautiful at night. She says I like my coffee black on Sunday mornings, black and strong. He replies some people don’t believe in God. She says Elvis is king.
You could see the back-and-forth working if it was peppered with strange personal confessions or hilarious observations about life from two twisted minds. As written, it’s dialogue that makes you sink a little further down in your seat.
Our Plot is in the Ether, -3 Points
**Spoiler Alerts Here**
The film reaches the conclusion you would expect – a showdown between the McMahons and our three hitmen, with townsfolk taking sides.
But it only erupts into a shootout because the film, as a somewhat western parody, demanded it. Little of the plot drives us here.
You can see shreds of a coherent story.
The first act unfolds, introducing characters and conflict and advancing to the isolated town.
And near the end, Dennis Hopper’s I.G. Farben shows up to escalate things, telling the hitmen there can be only one gang in a town and leaving behind heavy firearms.
But the second act is one big party scene after another. Nothing sets off fireworks between the two groups. Tim McMahon tells Norwood his gang is restless and it’s time for Norwood’s crew to go.
The script could have set up heated tensions between the groups that would eventually boil over, like a love triangle that spirals to violence or a plot to steal the hitmen’s buried cash.
Midnight movie or not, it floats its way to a conclusion rather than drives there.
Let’s Not Watch Straight to Hell
Total Arbitrary Points Score: 0 Points
Straight to Hell is an answer in a punk rock trivia game but not a compelling movie.
You have to applaud the risks it takes. It has fun cinematography and a few magical musical moments.
And as a concept, as a who’s-who of rockers riffing on spaghetti westerns in Sergio Leone’s backyard, it had potential.
But it’s a nonsensical movie lacking David Lynch’s talent for plugging a film together with tone when the plot frizzles.
You COULD see a movie like this working if it compromised and included more standard story beats. And you wonder why it didn’t follow the spoof comedy formula. For example, Airplane and Top Secret constantly riffed but rode the spine of a disaster film and a WW2 movie.
Perhaps the film started out as just a laugh among friends. But we can’t hold it above judgment since it received an actual film release.
Though I’d love to ask Cox and the cast, why wasn’t it a musical if you have a movie full of rock stars? Maybe egos would have wrecked the project, and the budget prohibited it. But I drool at the concept of a punk rock Blues Brothers-style film that’s an Alex Cox western in a Leone mold.
As Ebert said, I still love Alex Cox and look forward to the rest of his filmography. But as counter-culture as this film is, it wasn’t entertaining, and I can’t get behind it.
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Disclaimer:
This review’s factual information was gathered through online sources, like Wikipedia, IMDB, or interviews. Misrepresentations and errors are possible but unintentional.
Making art is hard. This is a fan’s blog. Any criticisms are meant to be constructive.
