LITTLE ODESSA
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1995 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: A deliberate and atmospheric look at
a Russian-Jewish family in the Brighton Beach
community of Brooklyn. The Shapira family's
disintegration is hastened by the return of Joshua,
a son who is a contract killer for the Russian
Mafia. Younger brother Reuben is also turning to
crime and the influence of his brother is only
hastening the process. This is a dark and
provocative film. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4)
Joshua Shapira is back in Brighton Beach. This is not necessarily good news for his family. Joshua's parents came from Russia to Little Odessa, the Russian Jewish section of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn many years ago and raised two sons, Joshua and Reuben. Years ago Joshua fell in with the organizatsya (Russian Mafia), committed a contract killing, and fled. Now he is back for another contract kill. He wants to come and go unnoticed by his family, but his younger brother Reuben hears of his presence and arranges to contact Joshua. Reuben has already been skipping school for weeks and hiding the fact from his parents. Now he is drawn to the influence of his brother. Rueben's father Arkady must try to hold on to his son, but his position is badly compromised by his own long-standing affair with an immigrant woman. What follows is not so much the morality play it might sound, but a bleak and at times violent story of crime in a community that has not been portrayed in film before.
The dark spirit of this film is underscored by dim or occasionally harsh lighting. In addition, while the film is in English, some of the dialogue in Yiddish and Russian and not all of the Yiddish is translated for the audience, occasionally adding to the dark tone of the film.
LITTLE ODESSA was written and directed by twenty-five--year-old James Gray, who already has a very sure hand at directing and has assembled a surprisingly well-known cast for so young a director's first film. Reuben Shapira is played by Edward Furlong, probably best known from TERMINATOR II, but he also was the main character in A HOME OF OUR OWN. Joshua Shapira is played by Tim Roth, who already has a distinguished career playing creeps of various sorts including the effete but ruthless Cunningham in ROB ROY and the restaurant-robbing "Honey-Bunny" in PULP FICTION. His Joshua is a mass of contradictions, loving his family but as ready to reach for his gun and point it between a victim's eyes as he would be to reach for a house key and put it in a lock. Maximilian Schell plays Arkady, the immigrant father who just cannot relate to his two sons. When they were just small children he read them CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. Neither of his sons can respond to his Old World intellectualism and neither can summon much respect for him. Also present in the cast are Moira Kelly and Vanessa Redgrave, the latter as the main characters' mother dying of cancer.
One false move seems to be the music assembled by Dana Sano. It draws heavily on Russian source music, but much of that is choral music. Somehow this conjures up images of the Russian Orthodox Church and just does not feel like the music of the Russian Jewish community. While I am willing to be corrected, I suspect that this music would be no more popular with Russian Jewish immigrants than with any other immigrants from any other part of Europe.
LITTLE ODESSA is a complex and disturbing film with a dark tone. It may have a teenage main character, but it is not a film for young audiences. There is a good deal of violence in the film, but it is more implied than shown and there is very little blood. This film gets a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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