Arts/Review

MIAMI BLUES. Starring Alec Baldwin,

Jennifer Jason Leigh, Fred Ward. Directed
George Armitage.

LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN. Starring

Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen Lang, Burt

Young. Directed by Uli Edel. At Cineplex

Odeon theatres.

_Its mean streets time in mainstream
cinema. By that term, we don’t just mean
the Usual portions of violence and more
wiolence; we mean that grittiness that
pees human degradation in a social con-
Ext.

_ Which is not to say that two recent offer-
ings On the theme of America the Ugly are
brilliant social critiques. It’s questionable
Whether Miami Blues, a well-acted and
edited, engrossing, offbeat treatment of a
riminal psychopath’s adventures could
qualify for the Enlightening Film award, if
Such a category existed. And it’s definitely
hot the award one would hand to Last Exit
To Brooklyn, a film almost as devoid of
jumanity as the namesake novel that
Inspired it,

But what seems to be emerging is a possi-
ble 8enre of knife-edge post-Reaganism that
whittles away at the layers of pretence cov-
‘ring the warts of American capitalism —
the layers that were applied to Eighties film
fare Tanging from bland comedies through
slasher flicks to right-wing orgies of glorifi-
Cation of imperialism such as the Rambo
Series,

_Miami Blues, despite its title, offers no
vistas of white-sand beaches and swaying
palms. There are a few classy hotels, but
much of the scenes of Dade County, Fla.
show backstreets of graffiti-covered walls
and storefronts with barred windows’com-
| Municating a general sense of decay, or the
/ Sterile venues of shopping malls and air-
ports.

Alec Baldwin is highly effective as Junior,
a boyishly handsome, frequently charming
con artist armed with considerable skills of
Persuasion but who can commit violence,
up to and including murder, to achieve his
ends (there are some graphically gory
Scenes). Jennifer Jason Leigh matches the
performance in portraying a naive hooker
Who falls for the man and his dreams.

Juniour’s dreams? They’re just like
Suzie’s: a nice house with a white picket
fence and living happily ever after. But
Suzie thinks the way to achieve this is to
Start a fast food franchise. Junior counters
that with, “Why don’t we cut out the middle
Part and go directly to the happily-ever-
after?”

Like other marginalized Americans. in
Miami Blues, Junior hungers after those
things the society promises but. fails to
deliver. Marginalized too is Junior's neme-
Sis, a cop played by Fred Ward. Sloppy,
aging, and modestly corrupt, Ward’s slum-
dwelling detective goes after Junior with
vengeance in his heart after the criminal has
beaten him senseless and taken his gun and
badge. ;
The film’s original premise is that Junior
poses as the detective, using the guise to
deprive hoodlums and drug dealers of their
booty. The problem is, Junior gradually
comes to believe in the image he’s created,
which helps to bring about his downfall.

But the self-delusion-allows a glimpse at
the complexities of an’ individual whose
activities are mainly anti-social. Miami

characters — with virtually no one to iden-
tify with, the audience may feel somewhat
numbed by the parade of corruption and
fallen ideals — but the yearnings of Suzie
~ and Junior, and their links with the detec-
_ tive through the fraternity of want, make

cops-and-robbers entries.

Blues does not entirely crack the code of its ,

this film better than average fare in the —

Blues, Exit show
‘America the Ugly’

Last Exit to Brooklyn, on the other hand,
gives us no place to put our sympathies.
Based on the mid-Sixties novel by Hubert
Selby Jr., this film mirrors Last Exit the
book in portraying brutality with no
redemption. After taking us for a walk
through Selby’s sewer, the filmmakers try to
wash off the slime in the sunlight of a happy
ending. It rings false.

Jennifer Jason Leigh resurfaces as a
hooker, but unlike the warm, vulnerable
Suzie of Miami Blues, the character of Tral-
ala has no soft edges. Strutting on stiletto
heels, the bleached-blonde, foul-mouthed
streetwalker is almost an old-style carica-
ture of prostitutes. Caricatures also are the
metal workers who mill around the gates of
the strike-bound plant; this film, aside from
the language and sexual frankness of more
recent cinema, has the look and feel of a
movie of the Fifties, with about the same
depth as that Cold-War period. And in fact,
it takes place in the early part of the decade,
during the Korean War.

Tralala’s role is to lure unsuspecting ser-
vicemen into a vacant waterfront lot on the
promise of quick sex. Vinnie, her pimp, and
his gang waylay the assorted sailors and
soldiers, take their wallets and divide the
take.

Other assorted characters include Harry
(Stephen Lang), the corrupt local strike cap-
tain who uses union funds to buy beer and
impress the local toughs; transvestites who
encourage Harry to acknowledge his sup-
pressed homosexuality; a loutish, insensitive
worker type (Burt Young) who tries to
punch out his son-in-law at the party cele-
brating a shotgun wedding to the man’s
overweight, childlike daughter.

Last Exit may have one thing going forit
that its literary inspiration lacked. A pitched
battle between police and strikers trying to
prevent scab trucks from leaving the plant
doles out a modicum more of sympathy to
the hard-pressed workers than Selby did in
his anti-working class, anti-people novel.

Salvation eludes Brooklyn’s benighted
residents, and in turn we cannot grant any
saving grace to this work, the creation of
German director Uli Edel. Last Exit to
Brooklyn, book and movie, imply that the
victims of poverty and degradation are the
sole authors of their sorry state.

Ina recent interview, author Selby stated:
“Those kind of neighbourhoods have
existed since the beginning of time — there
was one waiting outside the Garden of
Eden.” Just as old are those reactionary
sentiments.

— Dan Keeton

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Dancers from the Ballet Folklorico de Chile — Chilean Folkloric Ballet —
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memory of
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husband, father
and activist
for peace and
the rights of the
working class.
‘We miss him
very much.
Rose McEwen

Norman, Sean
and their families

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Pacific Tribune, May 21, 1990 « 7

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