Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageLast Exit to Brooklyn (1989)
Director: Ulrich Edel
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A violent, harrowing, but oddly tender adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr's novel about life in a working class Brooklyn neighbourhood in the '50s. In this harsh, poverty stricken enviroment, human feeling is sacrificed to expediency as prostitute Tralala (Leigh), union leader Harry Black (Lang), and assorted workers, hustlers, wives, pimps and homosexuals struggle to survive. While a strike at a loca factory explodes into violent confrontation, Harry uses embezzled union funds to explore the homosexual desire provoked in him by transvestite Georgette (Arquette). Tralala, meanwhile, frightened by an offer of love she cannot comprehend, plunges into a rampage of self destruction. From the fragments of an experimental novel, Edel has forged a remarkably coherent whole, cross-cutting from one story to another while retaining a precise delineation of character, picking out slender, golden threads of compassion and love from a bleak tapestry of pain. Not a comfortable film, but humane and savagely beautiful.Author: NF
Cast & crew
Director: Ulrich Edel
Producer: Bernd Eichinger
Cast: Stephen Lang, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Burt Young, Peter Dobson, Jerry Orbach, Alexis Arquette, Zette, Frank Military, Ricki Lake, John Costelloe full cast
Duration: 98 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Has David Cronenberg turned tame?
Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?
Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day
Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing
The 10 worst date movies
Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made
Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films
Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas
10 unlikely badboy biopics
Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects
What do you think?
Post your review now