Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)

★ 6.5 1h 43m 114 votes IMDb
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A gallery of characters in Brooklyn in the 1950s are crushed by their surroundings and selves: a union strike leader discovers he is gay; a prostitute falls in love with one of her clients; a family cannot cope with the fact that their daughter is illegitimately pregnant.

Last Exit to Brooklyn

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Cast

Stephen Lang
Stephen Lang as Harry Black Age 73 · New York City, New York, USA Stephen Lang (born July 11, 1952) is an American actor and playwright. He started in theatre on Broadway but is well known for his film portrayals of Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals (2003), Geo...
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh as Tralala Age 64 · Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA Jennifer Jason Leigh (born Jennifer Leigh Morrow; February 5, 1962) is an American actress. She began her career on television during the 1970s before making her film breakthrough in the teen film Fas...
Burt Young
Burt Young as Big Joe Died 2023 · New York City, New York, USA Gerald Tommaso DeLouise (April 30, 1940 – October 8, 2023), known professionally as Burt Young, was an American actor who played Rocky Balboa's friend Paulie in the Rocky film series. He also appeared...
Peter Dobson
Peter Dobson as Vinnie Age 61 · Red Bank, New Jersey, USA Peter Dobson (born July 19, 1964) is an American actor. His film roles include appearances in Sing (1989), Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989), The Marrying Man (1991), The Frighteners (1996), and Drowning M...
Christopher Murney
Christopher Murney as Paulie Age 82 · Narragansett, Rhode Island, USA Christopher Murney (born July 20, 1943) is an American actor and vocal artist. Murney has worked on the stage, in television series, and in movies. On television, he is perhaps best known for his role...
Jerry Orbach
Jerry Orbach as Boyce Died 2004 · New York City, New York, USA Jerome Bernard Orbach (October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004) was an American actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the series Law & Order (1992–2004) and as th...

Audience Reviews

kevin2019 10/10 Mar 14, 2025
"Last Exit to Brooklyn" treats its many unseemly social and sexual issues in an unflinching and unashamedly forthright manner, but even more than this it is the generous assortment of heartless characters inhabiting this sordid and squalid depiction of Brooklyn which almost makes the whole film unwatchable while simultaneously creating the biggest impression of all. They embody the worst and the most close-minded and negative people to be found on the face of the planet. However, such unsettling repugnance is also strangely compelling and fascinating and it has been brilliantly brought to the screen with great skill and expertise to produce one of the most controversial, thought-provoking, and unforgettably assaultive motion pictures of the 1980's.
CinemaSerf 6/10 Sep 19, 2025
Set amidst some fairly violent industrial turmoil, this potpourri of stories focuses on some of the diversity that existed, though it didn’t necessarily thrive, in 1950s NYC. The local factory is the centre of the troubles as the dockers take strike action, galvanised by their leaders “Harry” (Stephen Lang) and the manipulative “Boyce” (Jerry Orbach). Meantime, the striking in an altogether different manner “Tralala” (Jennifer Jason Leigh) rather menacingly plies her feminine wares on the unsuspecting but horned up military until she begins to fall a little for one of her more decent uniformed clientele and sees the glimmer of an hope she could escape this cycle of hopelessness. With tensions running high amidst their community, we also discover that the married “Harry” also has a penchant for blokes and that communism and illegitimate children are further stoking the angst in this increasingly diffuse and angry township. The story itself plays out well enough and I felt that both Leigh and Lang played their parts with quite some skill, but somehow there is just too much going on to cram into one hundred minutes and some of the more characterful subplots (i.e. “Big Joe” (Burt Young)) are sidelined or too undercooked to make enough impact on the storyline that Uli Eden has decided to focus on. That said, though, the two principal characters are exposed to the cruelties and double standards of the day in a fashion that looks authentic, gritty and is frequently violent and uncomfortable to watch. Therein lies much of the success of this quite potent look at mob rule and intolerance disguised as democracy and freedom, but on the whole, given the plethora of topics covered in the much more visceral book, I felt it disappointed.

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