Themes: Inner City Blues, Dangerous Attraction, Interracial/Cross-Cultural Romance
Main Cast: Jason Gedrick, Troy Beyer, Eddie Velez, Alexis Cruz, Tisha Campbell
Release Year: 1989
Country: US
Run Time: 108 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Set in the Manhattan street milieu that served him well in West Side Story, Robert Wise’s Rooftops tells the story of T, a quiet, soft-spoken teen-ager who has left his broken home and is living in a makeshift shelter in an old water tower on top of an abandoned tenement building. There are other kids like him, including Squeak, a talented graffiti artist who joins T after an altercation involving his mother’s boy friend. T and Squeak manage to scrape together what little money they need through minor sins (stripping cars, etc.), and at night all these street inhabitants get together in a vacant lot to “combat” dance, in which they use a combination of karate and dancing to force an opponent off of a platform. Into this mix comes Lobo, a drug dealer who moves into T’s building and turns it into a crack house. Lobo’s beautiful cousin Elana serves as his lookout – not because she wants to, but because her father’s heart attack has left her family in dire financial straits. T and Elana become interested in each other, but T and Lobo are at odds with each other – which fact leads to a showdown in which T must put his “combat” skills to good use. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Allen Payne - Kadim; Rafael Baez - Raphael; Jay M. Boryea - Willie; Paul Herman - Jimmy; Robert La Sardo - Blade; Rockets Redglare - Carlos; Stuart Rudin - Wino; Bruce Smolanoff - Bones; Jaime Tirelli - Rivera; Millie Tirelli - Squeak's Mom; Lauren Tom - Audry; Coley Wallace - Lester; Robert Weil - Hotel Clerk; Luis Guzman - Martinez; Steve Love - Jackie-Sky; Woodrow Asai - Yard Foreman; Edouard de Soto - Angelo; Angelo Florio - Cop at Dance; Jed James - X; Edythe Jason - Lois; Herb Kerr III - Jorge; Peter Lopez - Burn; Kurt Lott - Zit; Diane Lozada - Older Sister; Danny O'Shea - Rookie Narc; Imani Parks - Younger Sister; Jose Ynoa - Young Cook; John Canada Terrell - Junkie Cop
Credit
John Wright Stevens - Art Director, Jelon Vieira - Choreography, John Carrafa - Choreography, Allan A. Goldstein - Co-producer, Sue Jett - Co-producer, Tony Mark - Co-producer, Kathleen Detoro - Costume Designer, Robert Wise - Director, William H. Reynolds - Editor, Stuart Benjamin - Executive Producer, Taylor Hackford - Executive Producer, Michael Kamen - Composer (Music Score), Dave Stewart - Composer (Music Score), Anne Pattison - Makeup, Jeannine Oppewall - Production Designer, Theo Van de Sande - Cinematographer, Howard W. Koch - Producer, Gretchen Rau - Set Designer, Candy Flanagan - Special Effects, Steve Kirshoff - Special Effects, Gary Baxley - Stunts, Terence Brennan - Screenwriter
Rooftops is a 1989crime and dancedrama film directed by Robert Wise, which follows the misadventures of two homeless teenagers in Manhattan. This is the second of Robert Wise's movies about poor young New Yorkers, the first being the more successful West Side Story.
The movie opens with a chase. Squeak, the main character's best friend has tagged the wrong area and a local crew of misfits seeks to teach him a lesson. A chase ensues through the streets of New York City, through abandoned buildings and on rooftops. Squeak is finally cornered before his best friend and the movie's main hero, T, comes to his rescue. The rest of the movie focuses on T and his group of friends, among them a reformed prostitute, a young Latina, and a deaf basketball player.
T is famous among the neighbourhood for taking place in a dance called "combat" in which "combatants" attempt to force each other off of a square fighting surface through only intimidation, no contact is allowed. T falls in love with Elana and she reciprocates his feelings. T is also exposed to Capoeira, which he naturally compares to his own fighting style.
The main antagonists are a group of drug dealers who are slowly taking over the area's abandoned building, stringing out the local youth and establishing themselves as the law of the streets. Squeak crosses the drug dealers and pays for it with his life. The rest of the movie follows T and his friends quest for redemption at the hands of the drug dealers, and ends in a climactic rooftop battle.
The film was not well-received by critics. The film has a composite score of 0 (the lowest possible rating) on Rotten Tomatoes.[1]Roger Ebert opined that the film was unrealistic and sugarcoated the grim realities facing homeless teenagers.[2]
