7. Last Exit To Brooklyn (1989)
Controversial adaptation of Hubert Selby's novel about the shady lives of a group of people living in 1950s New York, Last Exit to Brooklyn will smash your heart into pieces. There is a union strike which threatens to seriously unhinge a lot of New Yorkers' lives. The film focuses on a number of people whose live are going down the swanny. There is Harry the macho union rep, married but a secret homosexual. By the end of the movie everyone knows he is gay and he is subject to the brutality facing gay men in that era (mind you, he did sort of ask for it by being a sleazy desperate man by the end of the film). There is Tralala the prostitute who would fleece a man for his last penny. She falls in love with a soldier who is destined to break her heart and the ramifications of that are simply hideous. There is a young teen fixated on Tralala who is her saviour in the end. We follow the travails of Georgette, a transexual who just wants acceptance but digs himself his own grave. Alexis Arquette acts his socks off in this role. There is a gang of hoodlums on the loose that torment him. There is also a family where a baby is going to be born out of wedlock until its grandaddy intervenes and forces a marriage. Last Exit to Brooklyn is a violent, dark and disturbing film. The characters have to suffer all sorts of indignities. The gang bang of Tralala is very shocking and not for the faint hearted. Other characters such as Harry and Georgette meet very grim fates but one has to give Selby credit for being ahead of his time and bold and provocative in his vision. And equal credit goes to director Uli Edel for skilfully adapting the book for the silver screen. It celebrates certain parts of humanity - such as the birth of a baby and a wedding. At the same time it isn't afraid to show the grim and harsh realities of certain sectors of society in 1950s New York.