The first feature of James Gray already relies on his favorite theme, which is the breaking of a family and the choices that result from it.The interesting points of the script, and more generally the movie, are the complicated relations between the members of this family. The plot, serve badly by a slow rhythm and a static staging, is very weak and doesn't manage to captivate, except for the rather good ending. This is the biggest flaw of this director, never imposing an undeniable force or power to its movies.All the characters are very cold and don't convey much emotion, therefore it is difficult to feel any sympathy, empathy or disgust towards them, and that's a shame for a drama.It is to be noted that Gray, in his following movies, will show great improvement regarding his direction, which is here quite hesitant and ultimately blend, especially with the use of cheap zooms.

It's the camera-work which first impresses in this one. The shots are so well taken.Roth is excellent, bordering on superb, and should win the Hugh Laurie Award for the best job done portraying (and sounding convincingly like) a 'north a-merican' by a Brit.Are talents like Schell and Redgrave wasted? Hardly. More: their Russian is very good - something you wouldn't expect from a flick like this. Sometimes the language is almost overly simplistic but the accents are very good.This is a taut thriller - a scary one - and there are scenes which may have you gasping because they're so stark. As in 'Casino was a Bugs Bunny movie'. Something like that. Is this good? That's another matter. A lot of this is lent by Roth's performance - he's a cold blooded killer and he plays it with more the poker face than Hopkins in Remains of the Day.Denouement? Watch for it. When the movie's over you might miss the fact it's over. Is this a highly recommendable flick? Hard to say. Some excellent work here. But will you enjoy it? Benefit by it?That's a much more difficult question.PS. Hey IMDb! Stop correcting our spelling and giving us no chance to correct your incorrect corrections. Suggesting corrections is one thing; forcing them upon us is quite another.

This movie was directed by James Gray, who was only 24 when he made this movie and six years later he makes an even better movie called The Yards. This one starts out with Tim Roth playing a hit-man who can't or won't go back to Brooklyn because of his dad, who wants nothing to do with him and some Russian gangsters. Roth is ordered to go and he wants to keep a low profile but it doesn't work that way. His mother is dying and his father wants nothing to do him and his little brother, played by Edward Furlong, wants to be like him. The movie isn't exactly clear about who Roth has to kill but you slowly find out. It is a pretty good movie but The Yards is a much better film.

WARNING: Spoiler that gives a clue to the ending. Little Odessa is a spinoff of The Godfather. Joshua Shapira is a cold-blooded killer whos family just moved to The US in Brooklyn in, I think it was the 70's. Their family has a dying mother and disgustingly and almost as bad as being an evil killer, an adulterous and even abusive father (Schell). The mafia violence is really graphic and disturbing. Josh's brother rueben (Eddie Furlong) adores him, even after finding out he's evil. Eddie again shows his calm, sensitive, innocence. He's really quiet. Rueben goes all over spying on his brother and witnesses his atrocities. The end is obscure to me, but maybe just cause I'm 17. I couldn't tell, but what it looked like was Rueben went spying on Josh again this time with a gun to arm himself and prevent a heinous act Josh is gonna commit and is seen and shoots and I'm not sure if the person died, then Rueben later gets shot by Josh and Josh gets rid of him and another human form, and has some flashback with Rueben and his mom. I'm not sure if that happened, you should tell me what happens.