Straight to Hell

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with three hitmen, Willy, Norwood, and Simms (played by Dick Rude, Sy Richardson, and Joe Strummer, respectively) who are staying in a posh Los Angeles hotel. After failing a job, they take off in a car with a whiny pregnant woman named Velma (Courtney Love), who is in on their scheme. They then flee to Mexico to escape the wrath of their boss, Amos Dade (Jim Jarmusch), and rob a bank along the way. While driving through the desert, their car breaks down due to Simms having filled the gasoline tank with diesel by mistake. They bury their suitcase of money in the desert and begin to walk.
Night falls, and they come upon a town in the middle of the desert, where they see a demolished car with a corpse inside. They then enter an empty bar, where the three men get drunk and Velma angrily pesters them to leave. As they exit the bar, the wrecked car has vanished, but the men are too inebriated to notice it. The group camps out for the night, and the following morning, Velma witnesses several trucks of lively cowboys enter the town, carrying espresso machines with them. Much to the dismay of Velma, who insists they keep a low profile and leave, the three men enter the town, which is now full of townspeople, and go back to the bar.
There, they are confronted by a gang of cowboys addicted to coffee (The Pogues), and a shoot-out ensues, but they are ultimately welcomed by the townspeople. The bizarre townspeople include a couple who own a mercantile full of piñatas, a man running a hot dog stand, and countless cowboys and prostitutes, among others. The head honcho of the town, Tim McMahon (Biff Yeager), invites the gang to a party that evening. The following day, Tim McMahon's elderly father is pushed off of a building by his relative Sabrina McMahon (Kathy Burke) and dies. The entire town has a funeral procession for him, and at the funeral, a friend of Amos', named Whitey, shows up looking for the hitmen and Velma.
The town seizes Whitey for being a "stranger", and accuses him of the murder of the McMahon grandfather. During the burial of the grandfather, his hand comes up out of the dirt and grabs the priest's ankle, and the priest shoots into the ground, killing him. Meanwhile, on the gallows, Whitey begins to tell the town the truth about Amos and the hitmen, but is hanged before he can tell his story. A man named I.G. Farben (Dennis Hopper), who claims to be a house manufacturer, enters town with his wife Sonia (Grace Jones) and introduces himself to the gang and the rest of the townspeople, advertising his company. The next morning, Simms sees Amos' car enter the town, and tries to get a drunken Willy and Norwood to leave with Velma.
A series of shootouts begin between the townspeople, Amos' crew, and the hitmen, and I.G. Farben and Sonia provide high-grade weapons for the killers. Tim McMahon joins Amos' team after having wrongfully hanged Whitey, and everyone begins to turn against each other. As Simms and Willy run into the desert, a shootout ensues with the town priest. They reach the spot where they buried the money, and Simms shoots Willy as they are trying to lift the suitcase out of the ground. Simms then hears Velma laughing, and turns around only to be shot by Velma and one of the townsmen. After Velma shoots Simms several times, the townman with her is shot by Tim McMahon. Tim and Velma then take off arm-in-arm with the suitcase of money, while Simms and Willy die.
Meanwhile, in town, chaos has ensued, and the town hardware store is set on fire. Amos is shot in the head, and virtually everyone in the town is killed, aside from Norwood and several prostitutes. Tim and Velma leave the town in a truck with the suitcase of money, but accidentally drive off of a cliff when their brakes go out, and die as the car explodes in mid-air. Norwood leaves town with the prostitutes, and the film ends with Farben Oil Company trucks entering the town to drill for oil.
The end of the film announces an imminent sequel: Back to Hell, despite the fact that almost every main character is killed at the end of the film. Although the sequel was never made, upon 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.

Tags: cult, comedy

Review:
Sy Richardson is as cool as ever, and the eclectic supporting cast (Cox semi-regulars like Sandoval, Berkeley, and Yeager, various musos and the king of weird movies, Dennis Hopper) make this worth watching for the "six degrees of separation" game alone.Now look, I DO like Leone, and I like punk rock and I love Peckinpah, and I can sorta see what the other comments are saying about it almost prefiguring Tarantino, but there's one BIG problem - the lack of a decent script.
For every good moment there four dull ones, and some funny lines or interesting characters wouldn't have gone astray.So basically, if you watch this expecting the worst you'll enjoy it more than if you expect it to be as great as 'Repo Man'.
I also would like to point out that Cox's next movie 'Walker' is a 100% improvement on this one, and almost IS a lost classic of the 80s!.
I saw this twice during its too brief(one week!)run in Seattle in 1987 and i was always showing it to people later on video who thought i was INSANE, which may or may not be beside the point, but this is one of THOSE movies, like Big Trouble in Little China, that can inform you about someones personal sense of humor and taste.
I think this movie is some kind of psychopathic classic that perfectly sends up the extreme amorality of the spaghetti westerns and prefigures the homicidal men in black suits later to turn up in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.
The cast is uniformly weird and wonderful: Sy Richardson, channeling pure self-righteous macho bad-assness, Joe Strummer, showing a surprisingly light touch for comedy, Dick Rude,hilariously channeling a psycho-punk James Cagney,Courtney Love gives a truly committed performance as a shrill whiny Nancy Spungen caricature, the Pogues almost manage to say their dialog, Elvis Costello doesn't have much dialog but acquits himself well.
The subtext relates to the American invasion of Nicaragua in the 1980's, relocated to a spaghetti western Spanish village, with the Mcmahon gang (played by pseudo Irish folk-punkers The Pogues, with Elvis Costello as the butler) taking the part of the anarcho-syndicalist Sandanista government and the gang of robbers (including The Clash's Joe Strummer and Courtney Love) turning up and upsetting the status quo.
Not only is this film a better spoof of westerns than Silverado but it contains enough weird and wonderful characters to give Lynch a run for his money.Firstly you have got the superb Sy Richardson as Norwood(Tarantinos inspiration for Samuel L's Pulp Fiction character?), Joe Strummer as Simms(RIP), and the 'runt' Dick Rude completing the main trio.
Also popping their heads round Alex Cox's casting room door are: Courtney Love(pregnant Velma), Fox Harris, Kathy Burke, Edward Tudor Pole, Dennis Hopper (IG Farben), Grace Jones, Jim Jarmusch, Miguel Sandoval(Eastwood impression), Xander Berkley(priest), Elvis Costello(butler) and the Pogues(Mcmahon coffee gang)...Superb!!
The film didn't have a whole lot of a plot, but that doesn't really matter much because it seems to be more of a spoof on spaghetti westerns and even the actors and actresses themselves.
All in all, I recommend this film to those of you who love weird movies and everyone who remembers the 80's punk scene..
The plot wanders through a cast of characters who slightly resemble stereotypes you've seen in other Westerns and gangster movies, but the resemblance is like that seen by someone with a very high fever.
Dennis Hopper, Courtney Love and the Pogues with coffee and whiskey?
If you want to see a movie full of shoot-em-ups, car chases for no reason and lots of dialogue that will make you say to yourself, "Did he say what I think he said?" then turn your brain off for an evening and watch this..
If this still sounds interesting then you may enjoy it as much as I did, but I warn you that I'm the only person I know who doesn't think this movie is awful..
It would seem that the cast and crew thought that their mere presence would lead to a good film so the story isn't important.
They were wrong, Straight to Hell is a sprawling, boring mess of a film and it's one that I don't recommend sitting through..
However, if you are not a Clash or Pogues fan, you will most likely think this film sucks!
Western didn't exist in that period it was taken over by post-punk Western as Straight To Hell, a cult movie, most enjoyable to watch and mostly funny.
If You Got Joe Strummer, Elvis Costello, Dennis Hopper and Grace Jones In One Film praise The Lord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
While watching you find yourself shouting at the screen "What the hell is going on?!" It is absolutely awful, stupid and makes no sense, and most of the characters are impossible to like and annoying.
The More You Like Leone, the Funnier It Is. Or: How to get the movie company to pay you and a bunch of your buds to go and have a huge party in Spain.My ex- and i watched this, and, as soon as we got over the idea that it ought to make even as much sense as "Repo Man", we found ourselves enjoying it greatly.It helps to be up on your spaghetti Westerns (and not just Leone's masterpieces), including things like "The Stranger Returns", "Any Gun Can Play", the "Trinity" films, "God Forgives, I Don't", "Django Shoots Fast" and so on...It also helps if you're a New Wave/punk fan..
I hadn't watched any of Cox's films prior to this one, but had always appreciated his knowledgeable input on the DVD of many a cult item (most recently several "Masters Of Cinema" titles).Well, this turned out to be a major disappointment  considering its Spaghetti Western references (of which Cox is a devotee and, indeed, the end credits include a special mention to, among others, Giulio Questi  director of DJANGO, KILL!
Anyway, the film is a test to anyone's patience with its gallery of utterly dislikeable characters (a rather plump Courtney Love being especially irritating  a far cry from her subsequent appearance, in both senses of the word, in Milos Forman's THE PEOPLE VS.
In all truth, the writing here is completely underdeveloped, and the film feels like a melange of punk rockers and culture icons thrown in front of a camera in the Spanish desert—because that's kind of what it is.Alex Cox, who infamously directed "Repo Man" and "Sid & Nancy," is the director and co-writer here, and while the script is delightfully absurd and full of issues (it has been said that Cox and his co-writer came up with it in a matter of three days), the direction is decent, and the film seems to rise above its production values on a visual level.
It utilizes the western ghost town sets in Almeria, Spain, which were historically used in many spaghetti westerns, and even some Eastwood films, and the dusty desert atmosphere is laid on thick.The real attraction of this film is its cast, largely made up of musicians—we've got Joe Strummer, Sy Richardson, and Dick Rude as the three bandidos, with a pre-Hole, pre-rhinoplasty Courtney Love playing their screeching yet somehow endearing pregnant sidekick.
The film really seems like an excuse for this ensemble of punk rockers, rejects, and icons to run around the desert dancing, shooting each other, and drinking coffee, and that's just the pretense one has to accept with this film.All in all, "Straight to Hell" will be a chore for many to sit through, but for anyone who appreciates bizarre cinema, spaghetti westerns, or exploitation trash will have a great time with this film (watching it through, one can see the referential moulds which Quentin Tarantino would come to bring into the cultural lexicon several years later).
She did all the needful things for him starting from looking sexy up to execution of his will (he plays a good father like role) by means of a machine gun.If You are in a too serious analytical mood, You wouldn't have much fun with this.
OK, Joe Strummer plays a hit-man, the Pogues are Banditos, Elvis Costello's their butler, and Courtney Love dies a violent death....what more could you ask for?.
Straight To Hell is by far one of my favourite movies, and shows some of the best performances by musicians-who-act this side of Performance and The Man Who Fell To Earth.
Staring Joe Strummer of the Clash, Courtney Love, and with guest cameos by everyone from Elvis Costello, to Jim Jarmusch.
It's Alex Cox, a usually talented writer/director, taking a cast of rag-tag punk rockers and a capable crew to the Spanish location of an obscure 1973 Charles Bronson film, and going wild.
This isn't homage, it's rip-off, like when a 2nd rate punk rock band covers the Who's Substitute for no reason except that it's the Who. And the sad thing is that there are glimmers of really funny, whacked-out humor.
When I mean weird, this is an understatement: there is no order to anything, not even to the group of gunslingers who ride into town every so often, get drunk off their asses and do sing-alongs to "Delilah" and "Danny Boy", or they shoot one another for the hell of it, or pick on the poor hot dog vendor.
By that time, you've invested significant time and attention, but you're still not close enough to the end to just grit your teeth and keep on slogging.While a few of the actors turn in very good performances (particularly Sy Richardson, Sandoval, Hopper), the majority of them are about like you'd expect...musicians forced to perform in an unfamiliar genre.If you're looking for good parody, this isn't it.
Spaghetti westerns and Leone are beyond parody.Several reviewers have stated that this film will be of interest to those who enjoy "Repo Man".
There's not even any significant profanity.Overall, this film is a big disappointment and, frankly, a waste of time.On the other hand, after watching and listening to Courtney Love, I have a bit more sympathy for Kurt Cobain..
I know there are tons of folks who can't stand this film, some of my best friends groan when I suggest I pull it out of my DVD collection to play during one of our "Saturday Night With the Witches" movie-a-thon -- people who would rather watch the entire Evil Dead saga or Cannibal, the Musical over Straight to Hell.I, however, find it to be a brilliant film.
Well, for me and my dubious tastes, it works quite nicely.Give it a try, don't expect it to be a spiritually uplifting film or to bring you closer to Nirvana -- albiet, seeing Love get killed is a bit of a karmic moment for me -- just enjoy..
I love all Spaghetti Westerns, 'The Pogues' and 'The Clash' but not a big fan of Alex Cox as a movie maker.
The film poster pictured here and featuring the great Joe Strummer is 10 out of 10 (Joe never changed out of the suit the enitire shoot) but the movie kinda sucked.
A year after The Clash announced an indefinite hiatus, singer/guitarist Joe Strummer made an attempt to redefine his career, and cross over into the world of acting, starring in Alex Cox's third feature length movie after the critically acclaimed Sid and Nancy.
In place of this, Cox assembled a hurried script, a disused location in Almería, Spain, with four weeks of shooting, the purpose being to cast the artists in a low-budget homage to his favourite genre; the Western.In turn, Straight to Hell transpires to be a movie of two very different aspects, the first being the direction and cinematography, which, in keeping with Cox's previous work such as Repo Man, is highly idiosyncratic, reflecting the ethos and influence of the late 70's/early 80's punk movement.
This really is a case of style over substance, and Cox's off-beat direction, is let down by terrible dialogue and irritating characters, one example of which being Courtney Love's character 'Velma', a heavily pregnant, underage love-interest of Sy Richardson's 'Norwood', who screeches her way through the script, mimicking Cloe Webb's character in Sid and Nancy.
Jackson's role as 'Jules Winnfield' in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, predating it by seven years.Straight to Hell could be labelled a surrealist or absurdist comedy, constantly using non-sequiturs, with statements and events having no relation to previous ones, which gives the movie an unpredictable quality, for example, in one scene, Sy Richardson's character dons a pink shower cap in the build up to a duel, for no apparent reason.
Other humorous aspects of the movie appear in bad taste, almost becoming dark and sadistic in their use, such as the abuse and eventual death of a young hot dog vendor, and the shooting of his dog earlier in the film.
The movie itself seems to exist purely on the basis to exploit the audience, capitalizing on the cult devotees that follow the artists in the film, such as Elvis Costello, The Pogues and even Strummer himself being the main attraction, the title of the movie being named after his 1982 single, from the album Combat Rock.
Beyond the amateur performances weighing Straight To Hell down, there is a decent movie trying to get out.
Cox self proclaims himself to be a 'cult director' and a 'radical filmmaker', in fact the only true cult movie he has produced is Repo Man, which is retains popularity with film lovers because of its originality and ability to distance itself from standard conventions, unlike Straight to Hell, who's cult appeal appears preconceived, as to appeal to fans of the musicians involved.The Clash sang in 1980 "Death or glory, becomes just another story".
While there is death and bullets, Straight to Hell lacks any glory, and is easily forgotten in the pantheon of great Westerns, such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and The Wild Bunch.For more reviews of overlooked movies, please visit: http://avoid-at-all-costs.blogspot.com/.
alex cox is a director who has never achieved the respect he deserves, mainly because he defies everyone's expectations and produces movies which have their own sensibility.
he has a style and a substance and straight to hell is right in line with all the others(see repo man, walker, highway patrolman, etc) i wouldn't say people like tarantino ripped him off, but i would say he was doing a lot of the same things 10 years earlier with a lot less critical fanfair and butt-kissing from the establishment.
anyway, i recommend this movie for people with youth and energy and originality who are sedate enough to be able to think but not so zombified that they can't appreciate a little anarchy in their movies.( i still have this image of roger ebert's blinking dumbfounded look as he gave alex cox's Walker a thumbs down because Cox uses a technique of historical overlap that breaks with all movie conventions but would be perfectly acceptable in more modern writings like william burroughs-- who of course we now all know and love fifty years later-- i hope it won't take fifty years for people to appreciate cox's work.).
Maybe just the gestalt of the whole enterprise: Elvis Costello, Sy Richardson, The Pogues, Dennis Hopper, Grace Jones, Joe Strummer, Courtney Love...
It looks cheap, but it contains many little gems: From guest appearances by famous people from all over the film and music industry to the excellent sound-track (Pogues!
Which is really, really odd since Repo Man and Sid N Nancy (Alex Cox's other films) are some of the best films ever made.
Equally a ridiculous and sincere ode to Sergio Leone westerns and "fuck you if you don't like it" story lines (inept bank robbers hiding out in an enclave of coffee addicted banditos with English accents in Almeria, Spain) this amazing film is hard to absorb for those that might want a linear storyline.
And not in a "so bad its funny" or in any cool cult way (yes Grace Jones, Joe Strummer, Dennis Hopper, The Pogues, and Dennis Hopper are in it).
Hell, re-watch a movie you really really love instead.
So much inspiration and promise, but director/co-writer Alex Cox's deranged concept of mixing the punk culture with spaghetti western influences doesn't seem to entirely click for the occasion and comes off amateurish.
This apparently (I say apparently because I honestly have no idea why this film was released, let alone made) was an attempt at a spoof of spaghetti westerns, something like Blazing Saddles, albeit with no discernible gags and no discernible plot.
It looks like something you would get if you took a bunch of indie actors and post-punk musicians to a holiday resort, got them drunk, then asked them to improvise a series of disconnected sketches based around spaghetti westerns with "they're all addicted to coffee, ha ha ha" as the only direction given.
The cast at least look like they had a good time of the "Look at me I'm in a film" ilk.
I am a huge fan of the Clash and the Pogues and Jim Jarmusch, and this is truly an amazing cast, but a cast does not make a movie.
I must admit, though, that it was fascinating to see Courtney Love of all people being plucked from obscurity years before she became famous and put into a leading role in this film, despite looking even more hideous in her youth than in middle age.
Although she was even less talented an actress than she was a musician or stripper, for me the only laugh in this chode of a film came unintentionally, when one of the characters says, referring to Courtney Love: "You have a beautiful wife." The cast, and the excellent Pogues theme song "Rake at the Gates of Hell" were the only things I enjoyed about this movie, and are the only reason I'm not giving this a minimum score.
The one good thing about this movie's release is that it killed the talentless Alex Cox's directorial career..