62
Metascore
21 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThese are fellow human beings who suffer, who are limited in their freedom to imagine greater happiness for themselves, and yet in their very misery they embody human striving. There is more of humanity in a prostitute trying to truly love, if only for a moment, than in all of the slow-motion romantic fantasies in the world.
- 80Time OutTime OutNot a comfortable film, but humane and savagely beautiful.
- In blending the personal worlds of these characters into a complete cosmology of the abyss, director Uli Edel (Christiane F.) and scriptwriter Desmond Nakano have transformed Selby's episodic book into an aesthetic whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
- 80The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyThough Last Exit to Brooklyn is bleak, the gloom is never trivial. The effect, instead, is elegiac.
- 80Los Angeles TimesSheila BensonLos Angeles TimesSheila BensonEdel’s empathy with actors--which he showed in 1981 with the harrowing heroin saga, Christiane F.--is further strengthened by the remarkable performances here.
- 60Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumEdel's stylized mise en scene purposefully frames and distances much of the action; but despite his obvious sincerity and goodwill, and the intrinsic interest of a very European handling of an American subject, the movie's bleakness and despair aren't accompanied by the unified vision that this sort of material requires.
- 50Washington PostDesson ThomsonWashington PostDesson ThomsonEdel, who supposedly fell in love with the novel as a Munich film student in the late '60s, has finally realized his adaptive dream. But for someone so devoted to the book, he (with screenwriter Desmond Nakano) ultimately betrays the novel's unrelenting brutality, its unshakably misanthropic point of view.
- 50Washington PostHal HinsonWashington PostHal HinsonEdel gives us the grungy details of the atrocities without providing a context to give them relevance. In the end, the film's ugliness becomes ugliness for its own sake.
- 50Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversThough Exit is often bold and imaginative, it is also curiously lifeless. The screenplay, by Desmond Nakano (Boulevard Nights), which combines the novel’s six separate stories, never adds up to a coherent whole.