This comedy/western/musical is perhaps the strangest film by cult writer-director Alex Cox. After a botched robbery, a band of thieves heads for the desert to take shelter, only to find that the wilderness hamlet into which they've stumbled is run by a murderous, incestuous clan of coffee addicts who are struggling for control against a small band of misfits and a greedy land developer. It all makes for weird, weird stuff, highlighted by a spontaneous song-and-dance production number and cameos from such punk luminaries as Elvis Costello (as a coffee-dispensing butler) and the Pogues (as three brain-dead caballeros).
Idiosyncratic filmmaker Alex Cox (REPO MAN) directed this parody/homage to the fierce westerns of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah. After a trio of dirty gunslingers--Norwood, Simms, and Willy--hold up a bank, they ditch the dough and hide out with a spaced-out gal pal in a small western town. But they soon find that the wilderness hamlet into which they've stumbled is run by a murderous, incestuous clan of coffee addicts who are struggling for control against a small band of misfits and a greedy land developer.
While the film is looser in structure than Cox's earlier REPO MAN and SID & NANCY, its strange pleasures include a spontaneous song-and-dance production number, the hysterically funny "Wiener Song," and cameos from such punk luminaries as Elvis Costello (as a coffee-dispensing butler) and the Pogues (as three brain-dead caballeros). The film is very weird, yet strangely rewarding.
Director/co-writer Alex Cox has cast this film with a variety of notable musical performers such as Elvis Costello, Grace Jones, Courtney Love and Joe Strummer of The Clash. Cox also includes in "Straight to Hell" independent-minded filmmakers like Dennis Hopper and Jim Jarmusch.
Screened at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
DVD Features:
Region 1
Keep Case
Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.85
Single Side - Dual Layer
Audio:
Dolby Digital Mono
Additional Release Material:
Audio Commentary - 1.Alex Cox - DIRECTOR
2.Dick Rude - STAR/WRITER
Documentary - BACK TO HELL
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Review 1:
"[A] wacko slapstick pantomime....[With a] starry cast of musicians, including Elvis Costello, Joe Strummer and The Pogues."
Source: Uncut
p.138 01/01/2006
Review 2:
"[With] a wildly eclectic cast including everybody from Kathy Burke to Dennis Hopper and Jim Jarmusch."
Source: Sight and Sound
p.91 02/01/2006
Review 3:
4 stars out of 5 -- "Cox's homage to the spaghetti western and the Marquis de Sade, is still a brilliant achievement..."
Source: Mojo
p.116 03/01/2006
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