Welcome to Brooklyn!

The year is 1952 and one neighborhood in Brooklyn is on the verge of exploding.

A thug named Vinnie (Peter Dobson) holds court at a local bar.  (His associates include the moronic Sal, who is played by a very young Stephen Baldwin.)  Some nights, Vinnie and his associates mug people for money.  Sometimes, they just attack people for fun.

A strike at the local factory has entered its sixth month, with management showing no sign of compromising and Boyce (Jerry Orbach), the head of the union, showing little concern for the men who are now struggling to feed their families.  The local shop steward, Harry Black (Stephen Lang), is a self-important braggart who never stops talking about how he’s the one leading the strike.  At home, Harry ignores his wife, with the exception of a violent quickie.  On the streets, Harry embezzles money from the union and uses it to try to impress the men that he would rather be spending his time with.  But even the men who Harry considers to be friends quickly turn on him when he is at his most pathetic.

Big Joe (Burt Young) is a proud union member who is shocked to discover that his teenage daughter (Ricki Lake) is 8-months pregnant.  Despite being out-of-work and not caring much for Tommy (John Costelloe), Joe puts together the wedding that appears to be the social event of a shabby season.  But even at the reception, violence lurks below the surface.

Georgette (Alexis Arquette) is a transgender prostitute who loves Vinnie, even after he and his idiot friends stab her in the leg while playing with a knife.  Beaten at home by her homophobic brother (Christopher Murney), Georgette sinks into drug addiction.

Tralala (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is an amoral prostitute, one who specializes in picking up military men and then arranging from them to be mugged by Vinnie and his gang.  Sick of being exploited by Vinnie, Tralala heads to Manhattan and meets Steve (Frank Military), an earnest soldier from Idaho.  For the first time, Tralala is treated decently by a man but Steve is set to ship out to Korea in a few days and, as he continually points out, there’s a chance that he might not return.  For all of the happiness she finds in Manhattan, Tralala is continually drawn back to her self-destructive life in Brooklyn.

First released in 1989 and directed by Uli Edel (who directed another film about desperation, Christiane F.), Last Exit To Brooklyn is based on a controversial novel by Hubert Selby, Jr.  In fact, it was so controversial that the novel was banned in several countries and, for a while, was listed as being obscene by the U.S. Post Office.  I read the novel in the college and it is indeed a dark and depressing piece of work, one that offers up very little hope for the future.  It’s also brilliantly written, one that sucks you into its hopeless world and holds your interest no matter how bleak the stories may be.  Due to its reputation, it took over 20 years for Last Exit to Brooklyn to be adapted into a film.

The film is actually a bit more positive than the book.  One character who appears to die in the book manages to survive in the film.  The wedding subplot was a minor moment in the book but, in the film, it’s made into a major event and provides some mild comedic relief.  That said, the film is definitely dark.  Almost every character is greedy and angry and those who aren’t are victimized by everyone else.  Unfortunately, the film lacks the power of Selby’s pungent prose.  As a writer, Selby held your attention even when you want to put the book away.  When it comes to the film, the lack of Selby’s voice makes it very easy to stop caring about the characters or their stories.  Even with the attempts to lighten up the story, the film is still so dark that it’s easy to stop caring.  The non-stop bleakness starts to feel like a bit of an affectation.

And that’s a shame because there are some brilliant moments and some brilliant performances to be found in Last Exit To Brooklyn.  An extended sequence where the police fight the striking workers is wonderfully directed, with the police becoming an invading army and the men on strike being transformed from just factory workers to rebels.  The scene where Boyce informs Harry that he’s not as important as he thinks is wonderfully acted by both Jerry Orbach and Stephen Lang.  As Tralala, Jennifer Jason Leigh gives a raw and powerful performance, whether she’s shyly accepting Steve’s kindness or drunkenly exposing herself to a bar full of lowlifes.  In many ways, Tralala is the most tragic of all the characters to be found in Last Exit to Brooklyn.  She’s tough.  She’s angry.  But, in the end, she’s ultimately the victim of men who are too stupid to understand anything other than aggression.  The neighborhood applauds her when she confidently walks past a line of cops and strikebreakers but the same people who cheered for her later try to destroy her.

The film ends on an ambiguous note, with a peace that feels very temporary.  The message seems to be that men are at their worst when they’re bored so perhaps it’s best to keep them busy, whether with a job or perhaps a wedding.  It’s a flawed film but it sticks with you.

Previous Icarus Files:

1. Cloud Atlas
2. Maximum Overdrive
3. Glass
4. Captive State
5. Mother!
6. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
7. Last Days
8. Plan 9 From Outer Space
9. The Last Movie
10. 88
11. The Bonfire of the Vanities
12. Birdemic
13. Birdemic 2: The Resurrection