Review of Rumble Fish (1983) by Caroline B — 24 Jul 2007

The Motorcycle Boy Reigns!

Francis Ford Coppola presents one more collaboration with Susan E. Hinton, author of Rumble Fish and The Outsiders. As a grown up, I like this film best, though when I was younger The Outsiders was one of the films that had more influence on me. Although both films are beautifully made I think Rumble Fish is a more unusual piece than Outsiders and carries a wilder poetic to it, probably because of the great performance by Mickey Rourke, that portrayed The Motorcycle Boy like some melancholic abstraction, mysterious and sensual, a cat-like spirit, that really deserves praise; not to mention Coppola's poetic footages, (you kind of think if Gus Van Sant got some of his inspiration from here) the unbeatable charm of Matt Dillon (Gosh, how I loved him!) and a exceptional story from american writer Susan E Hinton.