Street Of No Return

(1989, Fr, 93m)
d Samuel Fuller p Jacques Bral sc Samuel Fuller, Jacques Bral ph Pierre-William Glen ed Jacques Bral, Jean Dubreuil, Anna Ruiz ad Geoffroy Larcher m Karl-Heinz Schäfer cast Keith Carradine, Valentina Vargas, Bill Duke, Andréa Ferréol, Bernard Fresson, Marc de Jonge, Joe Abdo, António Rosário

One would expect explosive Fuller material from a David Goodis source novel and a plot involving race riots instigated to debase real estate values, but all that can be said in defense of his final cinema feature (two TV films followed) is that it spent a year being tinkered with after he delivered his own cut. Carradine’s alcoholic bum searching for the lost love of his old life as a pop star makes for a weakly passive protagonist and aside from the opening shot, an abstracted shoot-out finale in a tear-gas-filled apartment building, and a gunshot castration, it’s a banal mess. Smothered in a horrible synth score, Carradine sports a frightful wig, Vargas acts best without her clothes on and Bill Duke looks suitably pissed off throughout.

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