Straight to Hell

United Kingdom

1987

86 Min

Color

1.85:1

English

Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
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EXEC Cary Brokaw, Scott Millaney, Paul Raphaël

CAST Dick Rude, Sy Richardson, Courtney Love, Joe Strummer, Shane MacGowan, Miguel Sandoval, Biff Yeager, Spider Stacy, Xander Berkeley, Kathy Burke, Elvis Costello, Michele Winstanley, Dennis Hopper, Grace Jones, Jim Jarmusch

A gang of bank robbers with a suitcase full of money go to the desert to hide out. After burying the loot, they find their way to a surreal town full of cowboys who drink an awful lot of coffee. The townspeople are hostile to the outsiders at first, but seem to accept them once they’ve killed a couple of people. After a while, a mysterious man named Dade arrives, who seems to have unpleasant business to settle with the robbers. A free-for-all shoot-em-up ensues. –IMDb

Director

Alex Cox

English director Alex Cox studied law at Oxford—at least until being deflected into theatre through his participation in the University’s drama department. Cox switched to a film studies program at University of Bristol, received a Fulbright scholarship, then traveled to the United States to attend the UCLA film school. His plans to become the next Welles or Scorsese were muddied by several years’ inactivity, during which time he took a job repossessing automobiles. Drawing from the experience, Cox made his feature-film directorial bow with the wildly inconsistent but very entertaining Repo Man (1984), which served as one of the first starring assignments of Emilio Estevez. Repo Man’s musical score was drenched in punk-rock, a symbolic form of violent rebellion explored further in Cox’s Sid and Nancy (1987), a fascinating if depressing chronicle of the life and death of “punk” musician Sid Vicious and groupie Nancy Spungen. Critically celebrated for both films, Cox’s reputation declined… read more