Last Exit to Brooklyn (DVD)

Time has a funny way of altering your perceptions, back in 1991 the year after Last Exit To Brooklyn was released I remember watching the movie and thinking it was the most grim and disturbing movie I had ever seen. While 17 years later it certainly falls into the same categories, the passage of time means that the impact here is far less fierce. Last Exit To Brooklyn is set rather unsurprisingly in Brooklyn during the 1950's in a time where money was harsh and striking was the order of the day. Following no specific characters Last Exit offers a snapshot into the lives of various characters, the highs and the lows, while some lives improve other reach rock ...  Read the complete review

Many films have shown 50’s America as a period of post war economic boom. We’ve seen in these films the rise of youth culture often portrayed as cute teenagers, listening to Elvis living in clean comfortable houses behind and white picket fences. This is certainly not the view that is exposed in Last Exit To Brooklyn! Based on the cult novel by Hubert Selby Jr, which prompted the great beat poet Allen Ginsberg to say that it would “explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in a hundred years”. Made in 1989 the film version might not quite have the same dramatic impact but ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn’ is still even today a brutal and ...  Read the complete review

This film is stark raving mad! You find yourself either laughing from horror or just the sheer, unabashed comi-tragic nightmare that unfolds in the slums of Brooklyn, in the 1950s. It is based on the book by Hubert Selby Jnr. and I am confident in saying that after watching the film and learning about the contraversy surrounding the book which was released in the 1960s, I am excited at the prospect that I can also read this disturbing and vibrant story. A review will surely follow some time in the future :-) The story is pitched up against the background of civil unrest and violence, contaminated with very vivid characters, all trying to both survive and make ...  Read the complete review

This is a truly amazing movie. The 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 andlacks 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 ...  Read the complete review