After directing two bona fide cult classics, REPO MAN and SID AND NANCY, it seemed like director Alex Cox could do no wrong. His next cinematic venture, 1987's STRAIGHT TO HELL, looked like the perfect vehicle, a punk comedy homage to spaghetti westerns. Written in three days with REPO MAN co-star Dick Rude, utilizing the talents of various musicians - holdovers from an aborted Nicaragua Solidarity tour - and shot in Almeria, Spain - a popular location for many a spaghetti western it looked like the makings of either a contemporary masterpiece or an engaging misfire. Unfortunately, it's neither.

Norwood (Sy Richardson, REPO MAN), Simms (Joe Strummer from The Clash), Willy (Dick Rude, WALKER) are three well-dressed hit men who've just botched a job for Mr. Dade (Jim Jarmusch, director of STRANGER THAN PARADISE) and are now on the run. Along for the ride is Norwood's woman, Velma (a pre-plastic surgery Courtney Love, MAN ON THE MOON), a non-stop screecher. After a sloppy bank robbery, and the accidental pumping of diesel into an unappreciative car, the foursome wind up at a small town in the middle of nowhere well as middle of nowhere as you can get with a freeway operating in the background. The four quickly discover the whole place is being run by the McMahons, a bunch of coffee drinking hooligans, and earn their respect by offing a group that intended to kill one of their own. Once "accepted" into the town, the foursome find themselves in a situation where nobody can be trusted, even themselves, and it all breaks down into bullets, blood and coffee.

Everybody participating in STRAIGHT TO HELL with maybe the exception of Zander Schloss looks like they're having the time of their life; unfortunately that doesn't translate to the audience. Perhaps the script needed more than three days work well, it's not really a matter of perhaps for this movie turns out to be a muddled mess that meanders from one scene to the next, only taking hold of the audience during the final reel, and then barely. Curiously for a director who showed such a strong wit in REPO MAN and an excellent sense of style with SID AND NANCY, STRAIGHT TO HELL is lacking in both. This is likely due to the rushed nature of the whole thing. Instead of a fleshed out product, it feels like a half-baked offering from a director who bit off more than he could chew. Sure, many an auteur has done great work on a tight schedule Roger Corman's LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS comes to mind yet this is not the case here. The movie is like a feature length in-joke the laughless coffee gag seems an indicator of what the script was fueled by filled with cryptic references to political situations and old movies. Naturally Mr. Cox thinks the movie is very funny, but why wouldn't it be when he was writing jokes for himself? There is a thing called an audience you know.

Now before one thinks the whole film is bad, there is an upswing with the final reel and a rather inspired musical number that make viewing this at least somewhat entertaining.

The musical number is a cute little ditty called "Salsa y Ketchup" performed by town loser Karl the wiener boy (Zander Schloss). At gunpoint the poor sap is forced to sing his company's well, independent venture capitalist's theme song. As the quirky novelty tune unspools the locals join in for one tremendous sing-a-long. Such a shame Mr. Cox didn't have the lyrics show up, along with the bouncing ball, so that the viewer could partake in the merriment.

The final reel, without giving too much away, has the big finale, which isn't particularly big. Here the viewer is treated to bloodshed and double-crossing galore. While nothing reaches the heights of stylized violence like, say, a Sergio Leone picture, there's enough death and one-liners to make the non-discriminating viewer happy.

While the picture is a mess to watch, a few performances do manage to stand out. Sy Richardson as Norwood gives his character a stoic bad-ass edge that should have been put to better use. Zander Schloss as Karl is the definition of pathetic in the film's one laugh out loud performance. Dick Rude, STRAIGHT TO HELL's co-screenwriter, is... aw, hell, I'm just joking. Courtney Love as Velma demonstrates that she can be the most annoying person on earth, even more so than now. Miguel Sandoval as George, the sorry mate to an adulterous wife, gives his character a quiet sense of dejection. The rest of the cast rambles through their roles, neither good nor bad - just there.

STRAIGHT TO HELL has been released widescreen (1.85:1) which is a huge improvement over the videotape which neither paned nor scanned just held dead center in the frame. The print quality is rather nice, a few scratches here and there, with good definition. The sound is Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono and is free from pops and hisses. One may have wished for Surround during the aforementioned "Salsa y Ketchup" number, but it really isn't necessary.

The DVD release of STRAIGHT TO HELL has a nice selection of extras to satisfy the two fans of STRAIGHT TO HELL who weren't with the production.

There is a rather boring video promo featuring "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" as performed by The Pogues. They manage a nice cover of the Ennio Morricone classic as superimposed shadow images of persons with guns pose over clips from the film. The promo, however, doesn't make the film look interesting.

The film STRAIGHT TO HELL ends with the promise/threat/joke of an upcoming film BACK TO HELL that one would assume would never get made. Well, BACK TO HELL now exists hip, hip... whatever as a documentary feature. BACK TO HELL is essentially a series of interviews with participants of STRAIGHT TO HELL and what they thought of the production. It's interesting to hear Schloss talk about how badly he got beat up during the movie, "Just another broken heart for snake," I guess. The whole thing seems like a thinly veiled plea from all the participants for a sequel let's hope they're just dreaming.

Best of the lot is the audio commentary featuring Alex Cox and Dick Rude. Mr. Cox comes across an intelligent, articulate individual who states his intentions with various scenes intentions the viewer wouldn't have a clue to otherwise. Mr. Rude is more of the boisterous type, overenthusiastic about discussing his one screenwriting gig. Unfortunately the commentary track, as has proved on many a feature before, is more engrossing than the movie.

Every director should be granted at least one misfire, especially one who had shown such talent previously (a la Mr. Cox). Alas, this dud was followed by the equally confusing WALKER and seemingly helped to push Mr. Cox out of the limelight which seems to suit his personality more anyway. Lately his biggest projects have been the ones he dropped out of or was dropped from THE THREE AMIGOS (good call!) and RICHARD III (the Ian McKellan version) and co-writing the screenplay to FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. As a director he continues to work on smaller, little seen films such as THREE BUSINESSMEN and DEATH AND THE COMPASS that have their supporters. One hopes that someday the talent that showed so brightly in its infancy will return again to wider public acclaim, then films like STRAIGHT TO HELL will seem less like nails in the coffin.

One final note: the soundtrack to STRAIGHT TO HELL is quite good and worth seeking out - it features music by The Pogues, Joe Strummer, Zander Schloss and others - unfortunately it's out of print in the States right now. Now that's something that deserves to be reissued.