Set in The Bronx of the 1960s.
John Turturro gets out of prison a few years after he tried to rape Jodie Foster. Tim Robbins saved her the first time and she turns to him for help. Robbins has become a pacifist and will be going to the South soon as a Freedom Rider. Turturro begins threatening and stalking Foster.
Two young women sniffing glue in the back seat of a convertible are kicked out by the fiance of one of the girls and they wake up naked in a strange unfurnished apartment. They run into the boys who picked them up the night before. The boys explain that somebody killed their teacher so they have the day off.
They engage in a nightmarish game of elevator surfing---riding on the top of elevators rather than inside them. There are obvious dangers there.
The movie made the Bronx look like a hellhole, but Robbins preparing to be a Freedom Rider made it clear that small towns in the South were far worse although you were less likely to fall to your death there. They talk about the murders of James Cheney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in Mississippi by police/KKK which made the NYPD look good by comparison.
The story probably could have been set anywhere at the time and the story wouldn't have been much different, just less ethnically diverse and with more appealing regional accents.
George Harrison was one of the producers. They used the Beatles' "In My Life" as the theme song.
Free on Tubi.
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