Watch this 1995 cult hit if you're a Reservoir Dogs fan – it blew me away on Criterion's 4K disc
Little Odessa turns out to be well worth your time
There's nothing quite like a new release from The Criterion Collection to make you pay attention to a movie you'd never heard of before – and Little Odessa definitely counts as one of those for me. James Gray's debut feature was one I'd honestly not encountered before, but his later movies Ad Astra and The Lost City of Z both entranced me, so I was really keen to see how he started.
As it turns out, he started with an incredibly taut and impressively emotional gangster movie that could be described as a thriller, but is really more of a psychological drama. Crucially, it features a pretty amazing turn from Tim Roth, in a movie that acts like a brilliant second half of a double bill with Reservoir Dogs.
In the extra features on Criterion's brilliant new release of the film, Gray describes how he went to the cinema to see Tarantino's hugely influential crime movie, and immediately felt a pang of deep jealousy because he hadn't made it. Wanting to make his own film in the same genre, he wrote a script that very much played in the opposite direction – no repartee, just realism.
The fact that both movies have Tim Roth in starring roles is almost hard to believe with the benefit of time – and I'd say I like his performance in Little Odessa a lot more, not least because it leaves him so much room for nuance. His lack of affect in some scenes, and his reactions when things inevitably go wrong, are just gorgeous in their subtlety.
Of course, while the extras are lovely (and in many ways the whole point of buying physical media like this), the real star here is the restoration work that's gone into a stunning new 4K version of the film, which I watched on the Panasonic DP-UB820 player.
It's a beautiful transfer, and to hear Gray himself talk about supervising it is another reminder of just what's so precious about these releases. The film's full of boldly lit scenes, from a night-time execution to the harsh snow of a boardwalk in a blizzard, and it all looks so stylish and crisp now that it's hard to believe how much worse the previously available version was.
The sound design is also far clearer, something that's really helpful in a movie with more than one character who mumbles and stumbles over their words. It also means that when things like gunshots do ring out, they're even more impactful and, quite frankly, loud.
Also, as someone who's pretty happy sitting and watching a three-hour epic in the right circumstances, it's worth pointing out that Little Odessa comes in at a circumspect 98 minutes. That makes it perfect for weeknight viewing, in my opinion, with a small trigger warning that you might end up pretty sad after it.
If any of that sounds enticing, you've got to jump on this Criterion release – it's a great example of how seeing a director's early work can add huge value to their later films. It's certainly got me excited for Gray's next movie, Paper Tiger, which looks like it shares many of the same themes.
