Product Details

• Actors: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen Lang, Burt Young, Peter Dobson, Jerry Orbach
• Directors: Uli Edel
• Writers: Desmond Nakano, Hubert Selby Jr.
• Producers: Anna Gross, Bernd Eichinger, Dieter Meyer, G. Mac Brown, Herman Weigel
• Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: January 18, 2000
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301868684
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #199,846 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The urban purgatory of Hubert Selby Jr.'s novel Last Exit to Brooklyn is diligently put on screen in this harrowing 1989 adaptation. This particular 1950s hell is inhabited by a group of people who are tragically divorced from tenderness or connection: a bleached prostitute named Tralala (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a closeted union organizer (Stephen Lang), a transvestite (Alexis Arquette), and a gallery of thugs, drug addicts, goons, and soldiers on leave. Director Uli Edel's approach is straightforward and blunt: these miserable characters go about their paces, caught in downward spirals, with little hope of breaking their patterns. Without a doubt, some of this captures Selby's fist-in-teeth toughness, and there's also an unexpectedly counterintuitive score by Mark Knopfler, high in mood and sadness. But the film doesn't rise to the challenge of Selby's syncopated prose style, and the very talented actors are encouraged to hit some broad notes in attacking the fuhgetaboutit-I'm-from-Brooklyn mode of behavior. Even with that, it's hard to fault Leigh's fearlessness in taking on her brittle, self-destructive character, or deny the haunted ferocity of future Avatar villain Stephen Lang. Everything feels a little stilted here, which might not be a terrible thing, because a rawer, closer take on Selby's original would be unbearable to watch. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why the Dodgers left Brooklyn, April 22, 2004

By 

Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Last Exit to Brooklyn [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It's the 1950s. Under President Eisenhower's administration, everyone has a house in the suburbs, a decent job, a gas-guzzling car, and a basic "Leave It to Beaver" lifestyle.

Not so, said Hubert Selby, in his novel, LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN. For a good deal of the working class, times were still tough. Preyed upon by crime, toyed with by factory owners and unions, and, ultimately, shackled by their own ignorance, the working class had their promise of a white picket fence and primrose garden vacated. In Brooklyn, particularly, things were acutely tough. Manufacturing jobs were on a rapid decline, as companies moved out of town or out of state (which was why those companies remaining in Brooklyn were able to mess with their employees: take it or leave it, was their attitude). At the same time, an influx of immigrants seeking jobs made the hunt for work even more competitive--another bonus for the remaining factory owners. Slums rapidly worsened, so much so that Dodger owner Walter Alston decided his team's future was in jeopardy. L.A. looked like a much safer place for a stadium.

But neither Selby nor director Uli Edel portrayed this working class as merely innocent victims. Neither the book nor the film is a didactic rant about class warfare. The poor had their own vices of greed, brutality, and dissipation. Just about every other scene has someone going through someone else's wallets, union funds or pockets. If they aren't doing that, they're drinking, fighting, or whoring. It's a pretty dismal world. The natural response to this film might be: "Wait a minute. Not everyone working class Johnny-Punchclock guy was a criminal. Most people worked hard and honestly." Of course, this is true but it's not the film's concern. This is a study of those who were trapped in that world, and this study is compelling and horrifying.

Uli Edel has perfectly captured this bleak world, either bathing everything in a garish light or obscuring it in heavy shadows. The performances are brilliant. There's no understating Jennifer Jason Leigh's gritty and powerful performance. Also keep an eye out for a cameo by Hubert Selby as the driver who hits Georgette. Not for the weak-stomached and definitely not for kids, LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN is as cinematographically close to the innermost circle of urban hell as you can get.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly good but very disturbing movie., June 11, 1999

By A Customer

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This review is from: Last Exit to Brooklyn [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This movie is based on Herbert Selby's cult novel from the early 1960s. The novel traces the lives of some rough urban characters (prostitutes, street hoodlums, transvestites, striking dock workers) in 1950s Brooklyn. Think of this as "On the Waterfront" without the sugar coating. A friend of mine hates the movie because he feels it is nightmarish and lacks a moral center. I like the movie for just this reason, as deep down I think life is that way. The movie is a harsh and uncompromising look at people whose dreams don't work out; in fact, the dreams often explode in the characters' faces. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen Lang, Stephen Baldwin, Jerry Orbach and Alexis Arquette are fantastic. Don't watch this with kids or with people with delicate sensibilities---it's violent, sexually graphic, and full of verbal abuse and foul language.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Raw Look at the 1950s, June 8, 2007

By 

Martin Shackelford (Saginaw, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Last Exit to Brooklyn (Import, All Regions) (DVD)

This is a frank filming of the Hubert Selby novel about the brutality of street life in Brooklyn 1952. If you like "happy" films, this isn't for you. But if you appreciate a good dose of realism, the film is remarkable.