'Streets of Rage' is a low budget dtv flick shades of a vanity project, but it has to be said there's laughs to be pulled from cheesy moments, bad acting. Star, producer, writer Mimi Lesseos - an ex pro wrestler I found out - wears multiple hats. Ex Special Forces, pining to be a reporter who takes in, shelters homeless young kids while kicking butt on the way to taking down a big bad villain and pursued by many male suitors.
Melody Sails (Lesseos) a research assistant for a major LA newspaper is looking for a story that will take her career to the next level. She gets it in street kids and mystery man "Lunar" who charms underage females before pimping them out. In her personal life she's being two-timed by a co-worker, but also rubs shoulders with Det. McCain (Christopher Cass). Continuing to dig the more she has to defend the kids, herself from thugs. Which leads to a chance encounter with Scott Talbot (Oliver Page) who's interested in her for perhaps more than one reason.
Two scenes where Lesseos pounds free booze, multiple helping kids to show she has a good heart. All the men pursue her in romantic fashion and she's no slough in the fighting department. The part where she beats off a home intruder while intoxicated has some humorous dialog for sure. A saxophone heavy music score sounds straight out of a 90's tv sitcom and pièce de résistance of any vanity project the obligatory butt shot. As delivered by - the tried and true favorite of gratuitous female nudity - a shower scene.
'Streets of Rage' is not the kind of trip you should watch at face value. Tune in because you want a story that never stops being equal parts corny and laughable. The fisticuffs are nothing to write home about, but the whole thing clocks in at only 84 mins. Mimi once posed in Playboy for a ladies of wrestling themed pictorial which of course I had to lock my eyes on afterwards. You know ... for scientific purposes.
