Straight to Hell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the 1982 song by The Clash, see Straight to Hell (song).

For the 2006 album by Hank Williams III, see Straight to Hell (Hank III album).

Straight to Hell

Directed by	Alex Cox
Produced by	Eric Fellner
Written by	Alex Cox & Dick Rude
Starring	Dick Rude Sy Richardson Courtney Love Joe Strummer
Music by	Pray for Rain
Cinematography	Donald McAlpine
Editing by	David Martin
Distributed by	Island Pictures J&M Entertainment Starlight
Release date(s)	June 26, 1987
Running time	86 min.
Language	English
Budget	$1,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Straight to Hell is a 1987 film by Alex Cox, featuring Sy Richardson, The Clash frontman Joe Strummer, Courtney Love, Dick Rude, Dennis Hopper, Grace Jones, Elvis Costello, Xander Berkeley, Kathy Burke, Jim Jarmusch, Edward Tudor-Pole, and members of The Pogues, Amazulu and The Circle Jerks. Its tagline is: "A story of blood, money, guns, coffee, and sexual tension."

Often viewed as a parody of Spaghetti Westerns, it is really more of an homage. While the film received almost no positive reviews, it has (like several other of Cox's films) achieved a minor cult status, largely due to its cast of musicians, many of whom have cult followings of their own.

The film was not originally intended to be made at all, and the reason for a preponderance of musicians in the cast was the result of a concert tour of Nicaragua that was planned in the first place. Political problems arose concerning the support of the left-wing government of Nicaragua, and the tour was cancelled. In its place Cox decided to have the bands, and a slew of actors he could assemble, make a movie in Almería, Spain. Cox and co-star Dick Rude wrote a script in a hurry, and the entire film was shot in just four weeks.

The plot of Straight to Hell (if there can be said to be one) concerns three inept hitmen (played by Richardson, Rude, and Strummer) who, after blowing a job, rob a bank and flee to Mexico to escape the wrath of their boss (played by Jim Jarmusch). They come to a ghost town run by a gang of coffee-addicted killers, eventually leading to the inevitable bloodbath at the end. The movie has been accused of being one giant "in-joke", that few get, but those who do get it appreciate the movie for its subtle wit and absurdity.

The end of the film announces an imminent sequel: Back to Hell. It is highly unlikely that Cox ever seriously contemplated such a film, for a such movie made as a lark he certainly never could have expected it to be a substantial commercial success. Likewise almost every main character is killed at the end of the film. (It is perhaps noteworthy that the only survivors are women and minorities, with the exception of Dennis Hopper's character of I.G. Farben, who instigates the final battle and reaps the spoils.) Nevertheless, for the film's DVD release Cox reassembled much of the cast and crew for a short documentary called Back to Hell, in which they reminisce about the making of the film.

Straight to Hell was rated "R" for violence and language. The latter reason caught the producers by surprise, as the writers deliberately refrained from including any sort of profanity in the dialogue. Even the word "hell" appears only in the title (at one point a character quite noticeably says "what the heck is going on here?"), and the insults that fly before a showdown are no worse than "go boil yer head!"

Alex Cox turned down the chance to direct ¡Three Amigos! in order to film Straight to Hell.

Fans of the film have noticed an undeniable similarity between Sy Richardson's "Norwood" character and Samuel L. Jackson's "Jules Winnfield" character from Pulp Fiction.