Wow! Such a good movie.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This still remains the guitar fan go to movie, this soundtrack is unsurpassed. It has it all, classical & blues acoustic, then R&B / rock electric. This is from a time people argued whose the best guitarist or drummer. Sadly now music challenges are who can rhyme most insults. Yes I think rap should be spelt with a c, and DJ sampling is nothing other than theft. There'll never be great musicians again apart from niche listening.

Totally amazing cult movie. The key scene is somewhat mixed-up though. Jack Butler "discourages lots young boys" for the Demon - so Eugene is in fact helping & abetting evil by beating Butler. Sooo... who really wins what, and whose soul goes to who then? The means of victory is also mighty curious. "Primal\passionate\unruly\black" vs "European\rational\highly-trained\white" cultural traditions - & the latter wins as we are made to see. Well-ah, "let's get to it, Robert Johnson, standby..." No black Mississippi devil can beat the electricity Maxwell XIX century demon, right?..

I love the Blues. It's been with me since I was 12. And although I have broadened my musical horizon considerably over the past decades, it still is the Blues, be it electric or acoustic, that sounds like "Home" to me. From what I have seen and heard in Walter Hill's movies - "The Wanderers", "Streets of Fire", "48 Hours" are the ones that immediately spring to mind - I believe he loves the same kind of music that I love. I bought the "Crossroads" soundtrack LP right after I saw the movie back in the Eighties. I must have listened to the title track a hundred times, trying to figure out and then playing to Ry Cooder's fantastically grooving riff.I hated the movie, though. I recently saw it again and I still don't like it. I feel, Hill did the Blues a disservice.Sure enough, the movie obviously was made with the best intentions. Not only does it celebrate the Blues and especially Mississippi Delta Blues legend Robert Johnson. It also makes the case for cultural open mindedness by demonstrating the virtues of stylistic cross-pollination: Juilliard School needs to understand that the Blues is as valuable as Mozart, and our "hero" wins the final guitar battle by applying his extraordinary classical chops.So, I can sympathize with the message Walter Hill sends here. And the story is kept on an acceptable level of suspense: Will our hero become friends with Willie Brown, the old blues harmonica player who supposedly performed with Robert Johnson way back when? Will he find Johnson's 30th song? In the end, will he save his soul?Still, the movie made me cringe. There are two main reasons: leading actor Ralph Macchio, and the story's ridiculous climax. Macchio seemingly cannot shake off the feeling he is being watched. The camera makes him feel awkward. In my eyes, he never loses his self-consciousness. Yes, his role does require a certain amount of insecurity and goofiness - but being insecure actor is not the same as being able to convincingly incorporate it in the role you are playing.Worse, still, is the duel of the guitars at the end, which will decide our hero's fate. Two guitar players take turns at shredding, like boxers exchanging blows - and at the end there is an unquestionable winner, because one guy wasn't able to play some high notes and bend his e-string high enough? Give me a break. At the climax of the story we are presented with a ridiculous caricature of musicianship. Which in my mind is the direct opposite of what Hill wanted to achieve.

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.