Little Odessa
by James Gray
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Edward Furlong, Moira Kelly, Paul Guilfoyle, Tim Roth, Vanessa RedgraveDirector: James Gray
Brand: Lions Gate
Cinematographer: Tom Richmond
Writer: James Gray
Producer: Claudia Lewis
Producer: Kerry Orent
Producer: Nick Wechsler
Producer: Paul Webster
Producer: Rolf Mittweg
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 98 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-08-27
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
Movie Reviews of Little Odessa
Movie Review: A Specific, Solid Gangster Picture
Summary: 4 Stars
"Little Odessa," (1994), written and directed by James Gray, is a remarkably powerful and effective, award-winning crime drama set among the Russian community in present-day Brooklyn, New York. At its heart, it's a tale of a dysfunctional family that has lost its way in its new American life. And it's been given a top-drawer cast, all of whom fully inhabit their roles. Arkady Shapira, played by Maximilian Schell, is the unhappy father of this brood: in Russia, he was a respected man; in Brooklyn he runs a newsstand. Irina, his wife, played by the superb Vanessa Redgrave, is suffering from a brain tumor. Tim Roth, in one of his best performances, is their disaffected son Joshua; he's become a professional hit man, and long exiled himself from family and neighborhood. Edward Furlong plays his confused younger brother Reuben. Moira Kelly turns in a fine performance as Alla Shustervich, former girlfriend of Roth's character.
Life and death business brings Roth's character back to Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood;it resembles the Russian Odessa, as both lie on the sea. It's bleak in winter, and he knows he should not return. But return he does, yearning to restore relations with his family, over his father's objections. It soon proves to have not been a good idea.
Those of us who lived in Brooklyn as the Russians came crowding in in the hundreds of thousands never quite knew what to make of them, nor, I suppose, do we yet. But this is surely the Brooklyn we know, with its massive, solid, prewar buildings -- huge boilers in the basements -- in which entire families have been born, lived, and died. And Gray's intense script has given his characters here dialog and usage that any Brooklynite would recognize, and these actors, most especially including the English Roth, have sure got the local accent.
The movie is as bleak in outlook and outcome as its wintry,dirty-snowy setting, and, in its specificity and verisimilitude, it earns its status as a solid gangster picture.
Summary of Little Odessa
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