Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

tieman64 Next to Hal Ashby's "Bound for Glory" and Sidney Lumet's "Running on Empty", this little film by Walter Hill looks decidedly pointless. It's a tale about a young white kid who so loves blues music that he rescues a legendary blues musician from a minimum-security hospital. The duo then hitchhike to the state of Mississippi, the elderly blues musician using unorthodox practises to teach the white kid how to be a "great player" along the way.In other words, it's "Karate Kid" with harmonicas, both films fetishizing the exotic (Japan, Martial Arts, The Blues) and using white characters as an entryway into some heavily sanitized fringe culture. Indeed, actor Ralph Macchio plays the kid in both films, Macchio becoming a kind of symbol for cultural co-option.More interesting is the film's approach to myth. The blues musician sold his soul to the devil many years ago in return for artistic success. Unfortunately, though he is well known by a small fringe group for being a great blues musician, he never found happiness, riches or success. At the end of the film, the kid makes a similar deal with the devil, only in this case he offers to play in a "musical duel". Should the white kid win, he will save the soul of the blues musician. The film, of course, ends with the kid winning by creating a song which mixes blues with white metal and white classical. There's something really sinister about this, blues music unpalatable unless some superstar white kid comes in and fuses it with tasty whiteness.A better film would have made the point that being successful at the blues requires one losing the pact to the devil. Blues music is often about despair. To be a successful blues player one must, paradoxically, be unsuccessful. One must channel the ruts of one's life into the strings of one's guitar, forever tortured by devils.Perhaps this is too bleak an avenue for the film to pursue, Hill content to offer a rather middlebrow slice of commercialism.7/10 – There are flashes of greatness in this flick, but one can't get over how generic it ultimately all is. Hill would make the interesting "Extreme Prejudice" some years later.

headhunter46 I decided to view this movie just to see what the "karate kid" was up to. Man what a pleasant surprise. This is an incredibly good movie, with great music, good acting and surprise twist near the end.It is the story of a young naive man (guitar player) with a dream and an old, travel hardened man with a quest. Through a set of unusual circumstances the two team up. The kid sought out the old guy due to his love of blues. (He thinks the old guy is a former blues legend but is he?) The old guy took the kid under his wing as his ticket out of a prison-like nursing home.There are lessons about life on the road. (It is hard, trust me.) Along the way they learn a great deal about life and people, and each other. They meet some interesting characters, some dangerous ones, and they give us a few laughs as well.It is only after the kid experiences hardship, desperation, prejudice, and a broken heart that he can truly feel, and play the blues as the old man would have him do. Ralph Macchio appears to be playing the guitar quite well. If not then he definitely had lessons because he certainly moves his fingers in a convincing manner. I really enjoyed this movie and will watch it at least one more time before returning it to Netflix just for the music and the humor.If you have even the slightest love of blues, you owe it to yourself to see this movie.I've been up and down, loved and lost people close to me. Some were sweethearts, some family, some were close friends. The blues music in this movie made me remember all of them. With a bit of sadness, and a bit of joy.But, that's the blues. A bittersweet celebration of life.

amandapm7 I saw it long time ago, and since then I haven't been able to get it in the places where they sell movies............. ...or in the cinemas where a different alternative (Classic films). The content of the film is quite rare and that's why keeps you entertained all the time. Excellent music, story, actors. It Shows a lot of art and over-natural topics, some parts perhaps are "fantasy" but they way is shown in the film is such as natural that the person gets into the film and live it.Unfortunately it's not easy to get it in the country where I live but perhaps I will get this favor from a friend who lives in the countries where it is possible to have it.I say to everybody "enjoy this film because it's not just good, it's excellent"

theaudacityrocks24 This movie will always have a special spot in my collection. I remember seeing it on TV when I was about 10, and I hadn't started playing guitar. Seeing Jack Butler (Steve Vai) rip it up left a permanent mark on my memory. A couple years later when I got my first guitar and amp, I rented the movie and was able to appreciate it all the more - I took a cassette recorder, held it up to the TV's speakers and recorded the infamous "Duel Section". I spent hours learning "Eugene's Trick Bag" note for note, and well...being a beginning guitarist, didn't really do much with it at that time. =) It's safe to say that this movie having led me to Steve Vai, is a big reason why I am playing the guitar to this day, 10 years later.Having just watched it for the first time in a few years, it's actually a very good movie. Joe Seneca is brilliant as the harmonica toting blues-man, and Ralph Maccio does an excellent job as well! The storyline holds your interest and builds up nicely to the climactic final duel with the Devil's axeslinger - the one and only Steve Vai. This film also played a big part in catapulting Vai to fame - soon after he would join the likes of David Lee Roth, David Coverdale (Whitesnake) and even replace Yngwie Malmsteen in the rock group Alcatrazz. If you're a Vai fan, you know that the rest is history and he is easily one of the most influential guitarists of our time.Great entertainment, and again - a must if you're a guitarist.