Amazon.com video review:
The legend of Mississippi blues master Robert Johnson has
served as a fountainhead for generations of blues and rock musicians,
as well as a powerful fable for the dark, often violent mysteries of
delta blues. Johnson's mythic deal with the Devil, in exchange for his
extraordinary musical gifts, has become a fixture in blues lore and an
example of the enduring pull of superstitions that can be traced back
to Mother Africa and Yoruba deities. Producer-director Walter Hill (The Long Riders,
Streets of
Fire) sought to put this uniquely American mystery on film,
but when he was unable to secure a script devoted directly to Johnson
himself, Hill bravely decided to proceed with a more oblique,
allegorical story that retold the Satanic bargain through a
fictionalized drama set in the present day. In this 1986 feature, the
hero is Eugene, a classically trained guitar virtuoso pulled toward
the earthier powers of blues. When he stumbles across a lost blues
legend, Willie Brown (a real blues figure and Johnson peer known for
his partnerships with Charley Patton and Son House, among others),
Eugene begins an odyssey back to the delta country and the crossroads
of the title, where both Willie and Johnson had traded their souls for
blues power, to help the surviving bluesman renegotiate terms.
An opening sequence, shot in sepia-toned black and white, dramatizes
Johnson's own supernatural encounter, as well as one of the bluesman's
historic Texas recording sessions, and Hill's visuals combine with
frequent collaborator Ry Cooder's reliably authentic slide guitar to
offer a promising glimpse of cinematic conjury. Even the satanic
villain--a grinning huckster named Scratch--honors the trickster
figure familiar to African American superstitions, rather than a
generic devil. Willie Brown (Joe Seneca) is likewise a convincing link
to the blues past, but Hill's central casting choice--Ralph (The Karate Kid)
Macchio--sacrifices all for marquee value, a Hobson's choice that
casts a shadow of unintended parody across the film. Macchio's earlier
character, not Scratch, haunts this film, and even a nifty duel
between Eugene, his slashing fretwork supplied off-camera by Cooder,
and Scratch's ax-wielding henchman, heavy metal virtuoso, and one-time
Frank Zappa protégé Steve Vai, can't safely rescue the
film. --Sam Sutherland
