Little Odessa

The tone covers up many of the script's short comings. Tim Roth is great and Maximilian Schell is quite good too. When the two of them share the screen there are real fireworks, too bad they don't have more scenes together. Video essay: https://youtu.be/iQYPMFknG1Y

A very solid and promising debut from James Gray who would become somewhat of an American auteur, a rare bird in his generation. He would revisit the subject of lower class New York Jews in his next films which got even better (particularly his late aughties' movies We Own the Night and Two Lovers). Gray did a good job casting Tim Roth here. The Brit is an expert tough guy and does the seedy Brooklyn accent effortlessly.

Pretty plain but on a technical level some pretty cool staging (particularly in scenes with guns)

It appears I've been sleeping on James Gray. The plot is a little too familiar, and Edward Furlong is Edward Furlong, but I loved the patient, apocalyptic tone, and Gray's camera, though obviously limited by budget (and a typically bad DVD transfer) is gorgeous. Even though I really liked this, I look forward to him transcending these limitations.

Solid enough but there's little to get excited about.

Kind of a Jewish MEAN STREETS, minus the humour and with laboured drama. One can see that Gray is trying to make a good movie, with some carefully worked-out shots, a feeling for a local culture, an atmosphere of tragedy and a sense of foreboding. Unfortunately, the script is filled with clichéd ideas and stilted dialogue, and Furlong and Roth as the brothers are not terribly impressive (the latter, in particular, is an actor about whom I’ve never been quite convinced). It’s all a bit of a drag.

A decent debut by James Gray, but I wasn't blown away. There are some strong scenes here though. The cast is good.

A meditative melancholic gangster flick set in early 90's New York. It don't get much better than that. On the same psychic wavelength with Ferra and Schrader movies of that time but with a Jewish tinge (Roth not being Jewish did shock me). The final shootout sequence is one of the best cinema has produced. The relationships between Roth and his parents made me well up a decent amount.

Harsh, depressing and real. No pilot twists, no adrenaline pumping action scenes. Just a realistic story about family and consequences of actions. Some might find it boring but for me it was a good movie. It's never bad to see a slow paced, dark movie from time to time.

A perfect start from the developing director which shows how much talent he had which would show itself fuller in We Own The Night and later films. A melancholic, well acted crime drama (bar Tim Roth's strange accent), this is a thoughtful story which is matched by Gray being capable of creating striking images and flourishes.

This broken New Yorker/jewish/russian home -- older son loves mom, hates father, comes back to Brooklyn temporarily to catch up with his family, an old girl and also to kill people for a new job -- is the first sign of greatness of one of America's finest auteurs of the 00s. Nobody frames interiors, haunted faces, heavy gestures and somber urban landscapes like James Gray.

the glacial pace makes the film dip in the middle but it pays off so brilliantly at the end that it's sort of a non-issue.

Gray's visual sensibility is already quite interesting in this, his first feature. Many of the compositions reveal excellent balance and Gray establishes an excellent rhythm with his editing. Further, the family connections are insightful to characterization of individual characters. I'm not sure the plot always fires on all cylinders--in particular I couldn't figure out how Joshua functioned so freely in a town where powerful people were looking for him.

James Gray's entry into the gritty NYC is great and made even greater by the cast. The older legends ground the out of control Roth in his silent menace. This is harsh and doesn't bring a catharsis that one may desire.