The film stars Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Vincent Spano, Diane Lane, Diana Scarwid, Nicolas Cage, Chris Penn, and Dennis Hopper.
Rumble Fish features an experimental score by Stewart Copeland, drummer of the musical group The Police, who used a Musync, a new device at the time.
[4] In Tulsa, Oklahoma, Rusty James is the younger brother of "The Motorcycle Boy", a legendary figure amongst the gangs in the area who brokered peace between them.
The Motorcycle Boy has been missing for two months, leaving the gangs to start to dissolve as heroin takes over the streets, while Rusty James tries to live up to his reputation.
Rusty James fights a rival gang leader and gets the upper hand, but is distracted by the Motorcycle Boy's return, causing him to be wounded.
Rusty James's awkward, nerdy friend Steve helps the Motorcycle Boy, but is wary due to his rumored insanity similar to that of his long-absent mother.
Steve and the brothers go drinking and the Motorcycle Boy mentions that he found his mother dating a television producer while out in California and laments not getting to see the Pacific Ocean.
The brothers ride back to the pet store, where the Motorcycle Boy sets the animals loose while Rusty James fails to convince him to return to gang life.
As the Motorcycle Boy asks him to take his cycle to the Pacific and hurries to a nearby river to drop the fighting fish, he is shot dead by a patrolling Patterson.
[9] The Motorcycle Boy's look was patterned after Camus complete with trademark cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth — taken from a photograph of the author that Rourke used as a visual handle.
[8] Six weeks into production, Coppola made a deal with Universal Studios and principal photography began on July 12, 1982 with the director declaring, "Rumble Fish will be to The Outsiders what Apocalypse Now was to The Godfather.
[16][15] An edited version of the song "Don't Box Me In", a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, was released as a single and enjoyed significant radio airplay.
The theme of time passing faster than the characters realize is conveyed through time-lapse photography of clouds racing across the sky and numerous shots of clocks.
The black-and-white photography was meant to convey the Motorcycle Boy's color blindness while also evoking film noir through frequent use of oblique angles, exaggerated compositions, dark alleys, and foggy streets.
A special edition was released on September 13, 2005 with an audio commentary by Coppola, six deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, a look at how Copeland's score was created and the "Don't Box Me In" music video.
Chuck Bowen, in a review of the Blu-ray edition, referred to Rumble Fish as one "of Francis Ford Coppola's most underrated and deeply felt films."
Jay Scott wrote for The Globe and Mail, "Francis Coppola, bless his theatrical soul, may have the commercial sense of a newt, but he has the heart of a revolutionary, and the talent of a great artist.
"[28] In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote that "the film is so furiously overloaded, so crammed with extravagant touches, that any hint of a central thread is obscured".
[30] Time magazine's Richard Corliss wrote, "In one sense, then, Rumble Fish is Coppola's professional suicide note to the movie industry, a warning against employing him to find the golden gross.
The site's consensus states: "Rumble Fish frustrates even as it intrigues, but director Francis Ford Coppola's strong visual style helps compensate for a certain narrative stasis.