Critics reviews

It may be the closest American equivalent to the "Cinéma du look" that was coming out of France around the same time (Jean-Jacques Beineix's DIVA and THE MOON IN THE GUTTER, Luc Besson's SUBWAY), not only in its overall approach to cinematic spectacle, but in its fetishistic use of music and neon. Maybe this would have been more successful if it had been marketed as an art movie?

The violent hijinks that ensue throughout Streets of Fire serve largely as excuses for Hill to trot out various aesthetic devices, from a seemingly endless supply of color filters to an editing pattern that's in sync with the propulsive rhythm of the soundtrack. The film's climax, in which Tom and Raven fight with honest-to-God coal hammers, marks the peak of Hill's goofy, comic-derived sense of action.