Crossroads

1986 "Where second best never gets a second chance."
7.1| 1h39m| R| en| More Info
Released: 14 March 1986 Released
Producted By: Columbia Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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A wanna-be blues guitar virtuoso seeks a long-lost song by legendary musician, Robert Johnson.

Genre

Drama, Mystery, Music

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Crossroads (1986) is currently not available on any services.

Director

Walter Hill

Production Companies

Columbia Pictures

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Crossroads Audience Reviews

Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!
Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.
RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.
Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
Smoreni Zmaj A young student of a classical guitar dreams of becoming a recognized blues musician. He meets harmonica legend Willie Brown, played by Joe Seneca, and together they start a journey from New York to Mississippi Delta, a kid hoping to learn the lost song of the legendary Robert Johnson and Willie in order to cancel his contract with the Devil. On the way, they meet various characters and they experience interesting adventures, through which the naive boy slowly mature into a real blues player.I refuse to analyze and objectively evaluate this film. In movies with a soul like this objective quality is essentially irrelevant. I will only mention the good acting and superb music, for which are most responsible Ry Cooder and Steve Vai.I can not rate it ten, because I would not go so far as to place it among the best movies of all time, but, considering how many times I saw it, how many more times I will watch it in the future and the emotions it awakes in me every time, I can not rate it lower than9/10
SnoopyStyle Eugene Martone (Ralph Macchio) is a classically trained guitar student in The Juilliard School. He's in search of the legend of Robert Johnson. He finds Willie Brown (Joe Seneca) locked away in an old age home. Willie claims to have recorded with Robert Johnson back in the day. Eugene agrees to break him out, and back to Mississippi. In return Willie agrees to help record Robert Johnson's long lost 30th song. On the road, they encounter 17 year old runaway Frances (Jami Gertz).I love the music but the drama is paper thin. It's a road trip adventure. It's not particularly fun or funny or dramatic. All three people start off as disgruntled malcontents. Ralph Macchio comes off as a clueless brat. Jami Gertz isn't as clueless. And Joe Seneca is just a grumpy old man.There is a distinct lack of drive. There's got to have some kind of time constraint or a bad guy chasing. The whole thing is a series of meandering incidences. I think Willie probably should have told the whole story to start, and put some time constraint on it. Then they could have the excitement of the quest. Or else make it a horror as Willie is chased by the Devil. There are many ways to add drama to this story and they used none of them.While I love the music, I can't help but notice that it's Ralph Macchio on the screen. It's my one complaint about the guitar battle. I just can't believe that Macchio could play. But I would barely recommend this for the music.
revival05 Crossroads delivers an old fashioned piece of classical storytelling, about even older stuff, and added to that it's also a film that in itself has aged very favorably. For one thing, the blues is as obscure, and the mythology of it as unspoiled and seductive, now as it was then. But it's also a kind of forgotten film that one therefore can see today in a kind of piece and quiet. To me it became a fairly nostalgic experience. It reminded me of how much heart the American films of the 80's had, when they were at their best. At the time, it looked like the great American cinema had died to pave the way for the soulless blockbuster and to an extent that was indeed true. But there was also a great sense of joy to the best of these films, they were designed to have a broad appeal but they still managed to be personal. They told stories about young people that were emotional, even intimate at times, but always with a sense of authenticity. They weren't deliberately clever, but they didn't shy away from the darker realities of the world. Neither did they deny positivism and traditional values. Right and wrong. Good and evil. Family. Love. Fight for your passions. These were films with big hearts.Ralph Macchio's entire presence embodies this era, I think. Severely typecast in Crossroads, a film he starred in between the first and second of the Karate Kid movies, he does another bright, talented but inexperienced teenager, in a coming-of-age story where he is to learn the true nature of himself, his talent and the life that talent will require.What makes Crossroads special though is that it's not a film about karate, it's a film about something as under-represented in film as blues. Macchio is a kid playing classical guitar at Julliard in New York, but in secret he's in love with the scratchy Mississippi tunes coming from Richard Johnson. He tracks down an old harmonica playing fox from these days, an 80 year old "blues man" called Willie Fox who laughs him in the face when he shows up with his guitar saying he's born and raised at Long Island. Willie's got a point though, and he knows a heluvalot more about the blues than Macchio's kid (who's name is Eugene, but quickly changes it to 'Lightning Boy'). This kid's got a good heart - as did Billy in Gremlins and Marty in Back to the Future and Macchio in The Karate Kid for that matter - but he's in love with his own illusions and has no concept of what it means to hitch hike hobo style 200 miles on Highway 61, or do some rough business to find money, or to make a deal with the devil, or to have a cutting head-duel with one of his disciples. Willy's first task is for him to arrange a great escape from the nursing home Willy's in. "What, are you trying to get me arrested". Such a city boy mentality!After escaping the nursing home they hit the road deeper down a mythological landscape of blues, looking for "the last song" that Richard Johnson supposedly once wrote. Most of this follows a very traditional wandering-man/roadmovie storyline. They pick up a runaway girl (Jami Gertz), meet some shabby hotel men, crooked cops, they get in arguments with each other, they make up, they make out, as they get closer to the there's some unexpected and intriguingly, supernatural Faustian themes and finally a showdown ending with a kind of real, authentic Guitar Hero duel featuring real life rock hero Steve Vai.This is a film I felt very strongly at home with. Yes it does cover familiar grounds, but it's passionately drenched in the world of the kind of music that I love and, much like Macchio's character, have been dreaming as a far away myth when I was younger. Also, directed by the good and professional Walter Hill it's the kind of well made film that you cannot take for granted these, or any, days. It's a great 80's movie, less flashy than the Spielberg-Lucas-Zemeckis productions and more culturally ambitious and serious minded. Indeed, it's even rated R. That's certainly part of it's charm. It once again reminds me of the feeling that the good films of this decade were made in a kind of honesty. The invention of PG-13 changed all that. Not immediately, but gradually it became a marketing goal rather than just a matter of causality. Crossroads was Rated R, because the kids use some four letter words and there's alcohol, some violence, real emotions, nothing upsetting but, basically, as real as the story requires to be. This is simply not a censored down depiction of reality. It's kind of a breath of fresh air to see it, despite the bittersweet notion that an R rating wouldn't be considered had it been released today. It would have been a movie about the blues without any soul.
denis888 If there is one movie about Blues, then there is the one. I remember watching it for the first time in 1992 0r 1993, and since that time I am hooked! The theme, the deep South, the music, the cast - all is thrilling and the long, slow blues tracks by Ry Cooder are simply mesmerizing. The very trip done by Willy Brown and his young accolade to the South in search of the lost 30th Robert Johnson is so well done that you almost feel the smell of corn and whiskey. And then there is young Steve Vai who utters not a word in the sequence of duel but does a marvelous work as an actor and solo guitarist. That breathtaking Jackson / Telecaster, Metal / Blues, Shred / Slide duel is a highlight of the whole film. Man, ain't it cool!