This little-known movie boasts remarkable performances by an unusual ensemble. Tim Roth powerfully carries the film, and Alexis Arquette effectively conveys the sensitive, gentle personality beneath the ruins of Danny's drug addiction. The astonishing Danitra Vance, in the last of her few film appearances, burns a hole in the screen with her baleful glare -- you can't take your eyes off her. Kathleen Chalfant (a famous New York stage actress, almost unknown in the movies) is staggering in her one scene as the mother; it's been years since I saw the film and I can still hear her heart-wrenching reading of the line, "Tell him I'm sorry I couldn't see him." The brothers' time together takes on something of the quality of an odyssey over the course of the film. The movie's final confrontation, and in particular the last shot, with the camera pulling away from Danitra Vance until she seems to be running in place, are unforgettable. "Jumpin'" affected me very deeply in a way that is difficult to describe. Unbelievable that Jeff Stanzler never made another full-length movie.
