Thoughts on Last Exit to Brooklyn

 

   On Tubi, I watched Last Exit to Brooklyn, the 1989 film based on Hubert Selby Jr.'s 1964 novel of the same name, depicting the underclass and marginalized members of Red Hook, Brooklyn, in 1952. Directed by Uli Edel (Body of Evidence, The Little Vampire, Christiane F.), with a screenplay by Desmond Nakano, the film had an incredible cast of character actors and up-and-coming stars: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen Lang, Stephen Baldwin, Alexis Arquette, Jerry Orbach, Burt Young, Ricki Lake, Rutanya Alda, Mark Boone Junior, and a very young Sam Rockwell in one of his early screen roles.

    The film focuses on a union strike of metalworkers, and how the strikes affects the neighborhood, where the young and arrogant strikers spend most of their time getting drunk at bars and picking on people to jump for fights. The neighborhood is very old-school, working-class, Italian and Irish, which makes it a dangerous place for queer people, like the transgender Georgette (Arquette), the closeted union leader Harry (Lang), and the sex worker Tralala (Leigh).

    Stories between the union strikers, the queer characters, the sex worker, and military officers preparing to ship out to the Korean War all interconnect, and the movie has this roughness and griminess that makes it hard to watch, but gripping because of the excellent cast talent. The film was filmed in Brooklyn, and since parts of 1980s Brooklyn hadn't changed much since the 1950s, especially the remote parts of Red Hook, the movie feels lived-in and genuine, and uncomfortable to watch for its ugly and raw depiction of a bigoted and close-knit neighborhood of people.

    I hadn't seen this movie since high school over twenty years ago, and only remembered parts of it, and blanking out the rest of the film. When I was in my junior and senior years, I knew an acting teacher named Rob Kramer, who taught drama at the arts magnet school I went to half-day to do creative writing and playwriting, and he had a small part in this movie. I had watched it, and then asked him what role he was in the movie, and he went, "I'm the guy who instigates the gang rape on Jennifer Jason Leigh." Bold of him to be that blunt to a teenage student, but I appreciated the honesty.

    It's a really great film, and I came away really feeling for the marginalized characters, and impressed with what a powerhouse of an actor Stephen Lang is. I'm only casually familiar with him from Avatar and Don't Breathe, but he gave a knockout role as a closeted husband and father carrying on a secret romance with a gay man that uses him for his money than caring about him.

    And Jennifer Jason Leigh had already proved that she could take on tough roles, like her role in Paul Verhoeven's Flesh and Blood in 1985, and this role would further influence her 1990s career of playing sex workers, people with substance use disorder, and mental health issues, and bringing heart and honesty to them.

    It was a very bleak film to watch, but really good to revisit it after so many years and come at it with an older perspective.