This preposterous updating of Charles Perry's 1962 pulp novel
Portrait of a Young Man Drowning, about an unbalanced youngster taken up by Jewish gangsters in 1930s Brooklyn, is the kind of movie that gives black comedy a bad
name. 18-year-old misfit Harold Odum (Norman Reedus) lives with his overprotective mother, Kate (Deborah Harry), working at a local burger joint to support her. The blowsy Kate, a onetime prostitute, smothers her boy with a creepy mix of maternal and erotic affection whose pathological roots are
not what you'd call subtle. Harold's life appears to be looking up when he's taken under the wing of local tough guy Abie the Bug (Peter Appel),...
Released:
1999
Rated:
R
Length:
97 mins