User Reviews

The first time that Robert De Niro appears up-close in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets is to the tune of the Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash. It's from this point forward that the movie leaves the realm of being a 'good film' and becomes 'one of the greatest films of all time.' Simply put, the energy of Mean Streets is fantastic. De Niro's flamboyant entrance is one of many iconic moments in the film, which has influenced just about every crime film made since – for good reason.

And yet ironically Mean Streets is rarely acknowledged as the masterpiece that it is, perhaps because a number of people actually forget about it. Everyone remembers Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and GoodFellas in particular, but Scorsese's breakthrough remains one of his most important and honest pieces of work, given little recognition apart from the praise by movie critics who do remember it.

Harvey Keitel, giving one of his most realistic and three-dimensional performances of all-time, plays the lonely and worried Charlie, a 20-something New York City Catholic who is haunted by his friend, Johnny Boy (De Niro), the local loner who has to jump off the sides of streets in order to dodge the local Mafia thugs he owes money to.

Mean Streets has been accused of lacking a point, and one critic calls it 'too real,' but I'd take this over most recent films any day of the week. Mean Streets doesn't have a dynamic arc like most motion pictures do – sure, there's the rising action leading up to the climax, but it doesn't move from one frame to another trying to figure out the easiest way to end the movie while managing to stress all its points in such a manner so blatant that a four-year-old could pick up the themes.

It respects its audience enough to study its characters in such a way that they are given ten times as much depth as those seen in modern films released through Hollywood. As Johnny Boy, De Niro paints the ultimate portrait of a typical street loner – a dumb kid who 'borrows money from everyone and never pays them back.' Charlie, much smarter and wiser, takes Johnny under his wing and tries to help him get a job, so that he can pay back what he owes to a local kingpin. However, Johnny is so irresponsible and stupid that he doesn't show up for work and begins fighting with the mob – leading up to an inescapable conclusion that features some very ancient themes colliding together. It's the classic tale of redemption and escaping one's past, and if the film has a point it is that some people can't change and you'll get what's coming to you, even if you've got other people helping you out.

The film does have its technical flaws, such as poor dubbing, inconsistency, and the occasional goof. It's a raw movie, filmed on a low budget by a young and far more naïve Martin Scorsese. But all his typical elements are in place, to be expanded upon later in his career.

Keitel and De Niro are superb, particularly De Niro who shows great range very early on in his career. Almost unrecognizable in shabby clothing, hats and a scrawny figure to boot, this is a role that would typically be more suitable for Christopher Walken or other charismatic character actors – but De Niro pulls off the role with intense talent, proving once again that he can handle any type of role. He's known for his psychotic roles, but in Mean Streets, he plays the opposite of Travis Bickle. Johnny Boy isn't unstable or psychopathic – he's just wild and stupid.

Keitel channels all the thoughtful consciousness of an older child, considering Johnny Boy to be a brother of sorts. He feels that if he fails Johnny, he will somehow fail himself.

Mean Streets is a careful character study that never resorts to cardboard cutout caricatures or the standard clichés of the genre. Dialogue does not exist to move action forward towards the next adrenaline-packed sequence; Mean Streets focuses on its inhabitants with such strong emotional power that it's impossible not to be caught up in its grasp. A true classic from start to finish, and undeniably a very moving film.

Charlie may be small time but the authority and standing of his Uncle Giovanni in the community of Little Italy offers him the chance to become more than just a local hustler. One of the things he should be careful of is the company he keeps and who he stands with. Unfortunately Charlie is very protective of his cousin Johnny Boy, who seems determined to borrow as much money as possible, gamble it away and not pay it back and also in a relationship with Johnny's relation Teresa. While the fun and energy of the street life continues, dark consequences of all these things threaten Charlie and those around him.

It has been years since I saw this film and I noticed that I had last watched it before I started reviewing. As a result I watched it again yesterday to refresh my memory. Seeing it with older eyes is an impressive experience because I appreciate what Scorsese has gone on to do and found it fascinating to look back on this, one of his earliest films. The plot is a mash of characters and events that come together to create a sense of place that is convincingly done; the overall narrative focuses on Charlie, in particular where his relationships are taking him but this aspect ebbs and flows with the events. It is funny, violent, personal and engaging, only a few aspects come over as weak. The script flows like real dialogue, producing the different moods of each scene and also being memorable and rough.

The style and direction of the film are impressive and it is interesting to see the influence Scorsese had with this and his other films. The techniques employed here will ring bells with anyone who watches modern cinema and television with more than a passing interest, Sopranos in particular owes him a debt. Here we have the slow-motions, chest-mounted camera (I'm sure there is a proper name for it), impressive use of music and so on that we have come to be used to with Scorsese and one cannot help be impressed by how well developed these ideas were at an early stage in his career. Of course along with stylistic constants, several of the cast would become regulars. Keitel is the heart of the film for me and, although his opportunities in the script are surprisingly limited, I felt he did well with the themes handed to him. De Niro of course catches the eye more because of what was to come but also because he has the more energetic character. Robinson didn't make much of an impression on me but the support cast features early turns from faces such as Proval, Romanus, Argo and others.

Mean Streets might be a bit rough and ready when placed next to the polished films that Scorsese would go on to do but it does not take away from its strengths to look back at it. So much of Scorsese's style and calling cards are in place even at this early stage and his film convincingly creates the streets and characters of the place. The main players involved have done better films since this one but it is still strong, stylish and interesting and definitely worth a look for anyone who has since any other Scorsese films.

'Mean Streets', the earliest Scorsese film people have heard of, is the result of an on-form film maker, telling a personal story.

One thing to immediately note about 'Mean Streets' is the performance of our two leads, Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro, both looking young and are full of energy. They deliver the goods, big time. They are both so watchable and make up at least half of the movie's appeal. In fact, 'Mean Streets' is an inherently watchable movie overall, helped by some fine dialogue and Scorsese's trademark energetic and involving camera-work. The main draw is the antics of the characters and their relationships rather than a high-stakes narrative. Dramatic things happen but don't relate intrinsically to the central plot: that of De Niro's character Johnny Boy, his debts to clubs, bars and old pals along with his long-suffering buddy Charlie (Keitel).

In comparison to other Scorsese films (which is inevitably going to happen if this is not your first Scorsese), it is very low on scale and as mentioned before, low on stakes. This is no gangster epic or psychological portrait but simply a 2 hour window into the streets of New York. It is certainly worth watching.

Martin Scorsese has made some brilliant movies in his life, but unfortunately this isn't one of them. I can't really call it bad, because the direction and the cinematography just drip with pure talent, but I have some major problems with the plot. Mainly, where the hell is it? The story doesn't just move at a slow pace, it appears to go in incredibly tiring loops. It starts of with Johnny Boy (a solid Robert DeNiro) owing a whole bunch of crooks money, which is a pretty riveting starting point. What does he do about it? What do the crooks do about it? Nothing, and that goes on for two hours. The whole movie appears to be Harvey Keitel endlessly saying he has to pay his debts, to which he refuses, to which he asks it again half an hour later, to which he like, makes up an excuse and goes to the movies, and all of it feels so redundant. The movie finally gets to the point in the end, but that doesn't really save it. It shows the sadness of the bad neighbourhoods in New York wonderfully, but that's really all I can say about it.

Having watched a number of (director) Martin Scorecese's profane/violent crime films - some good, some bad - his first entry here is very different from the rest in one crucial aspect: it's boring!! Love him or hate him, you can't say that about his other films.

This film just doesn't have much life to it. Yes, there is some action but something is missing, perhaps characters that one could care about. After a while, I found I just did not care what happened...period. I canned it with 40 minutes to go. A dozen years later, I gave it another shot, and it was still just as boring and unappealing.

The only interesting facet was to see such young-and-skinny well-known actors like Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. Otherwise, these "mean streets" are nothing but a dead end, so turn around and head in another direction. Don't waste your gas.

I was never clear at just why Harvey Keitel was putting himself out on a limb for Robert DeNiro in Mean Streets. Sure he's taken with DeNiro's cousin Amy Robinson still I'm not sure he was worth the effort.

Keitel is a small time hood in Manhattan's Little Italy who's not really into it. DeNiro is another small time hood but he's completely and psychotically out of control. He's borrowed a few grand from local loan shark Robert Romanus and Romanus wants his money. Now during the climax scene DeNiro does ask a relevant question, why after he has borrowed and stiffed everyone in the neighborhood would you lend him any money?

In fact Keitel is all that's standing between DeNiro and gangster retribution. Is it all worth it even for Amy Robinson who is an epileptic and for some reason Keitel's uncle Cesare Danova thinks that disqualifies her as a potential bride.

The story is a bit muddled but the characters especially Keitel and DeNiro are unforgettable. Mean Streets made the career of both of them and of director Martin Scorsese. Keitel has become a valued character player and DeNiro a star with an astonishing variety of roles. In fact next to John Ford/John Wayne, Martin Scorsese/Robert DeNiro is probably the most successful director/player combination in film history.

This must have been a labor of love since Martin Scorsese grew up in Little Italy grown a lot smaller since he was a kid there. No doubt Keitel, DeNiro and the rest are drawn from characters he knew. His mom Catherine Scorsese also makes an appearance as she does in many of her son's works.

I don't think Mean Streets ranks up there with Casino, The Departed, The Aviator and Goodfellas, but it's an interesting work.

One of the things that I love the most about watching the old classics is when you can so clearly see the beginnings of what later became such trademarks of a director, actor, even a genre. Martin Scorsese begins a long line of films about the gangs of New York with Mean Streets, a gritty look at the underside of New York City that foreshadowed much of the same stark realism portrayed in Taxi Driver a few years later. It reminds me of the minimalist realism of films like Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, another urban classic.

Robert DeNiro plays Johnny Boy, the fast talking kid who owes money all over town and never seems to care to pay anyone back. We meet other characters who owe people money, and their apologies at not being able to pay are genuine, they realize that they're not going to get late fees added to their debt or Last Notices, they're putting their lives on the line. There is genuine fear on their side and genuine malice on the side of the people they owe money to, but Johnny Boy just doesn't seem to care.

Harvey Keitel plays Charlie Cappa, who is constantly trying to get Johnny Boy to shape up and pay off what he owes, knowing the danger that he is in and frustrated at Johnny's lack of interest or care in the fact that he owes so many people so much money. Johnny and Charlie live in the same environment but completely different worlds. Johnny holds himself in and laughs everything off, occasionally venting his frustration in quick bursts of violence, Charlie is much more contained but is tormented spiritually. While Johnny gets himself into endless debt with people that collect by any means necessary, Charlie goes to confession and holds his fingers over flames to remind himself of the dangers of the afterlife should he mess up in this one. Catholicism is a major character in this film.

The movie is set in New York City in the late 1960s, where Scorsese grew up in presumably something of a similar environment. Something must have gone differently, since he ended up one of the most famous directors in the world rather than dead like so many characters in his movies do, but he creates this environment in Mean Streets that gives an incredible view into the dangers of the life that so many people lived and continue to live there. I've never even been to New York, but having seen so many of Scorsese's films I think I can understand why the environment could have had such an impact on him that it dominated most of his career as a filmmaker.

There are some classic scenes in this movie that would have been much more widely quoted were it not for the even more quotable lines from Taxi Driver. Mean Streets, for example, is where you find the classic speech by Robert DeNiro, I'll call it the "I borrow money from everybody so I owe everybody money so I can't borrow money no more so I borrow money from you because you're the only jerkoff around here that I can borrow money without paying back!" speech. I love that one, especially the expression on his face, he's having such a great time.

But considering the world that he lives in, it's almost understandable the way he cares so little about placing himself in danger. In a life as bleak and unpromising as the one that is portrayed in this movie, it is to be expected that someone will display passive suicidal behavior. Johnny knows he's never going to go to college, he's never going to be a doctor or a businessman or drive a nice car, he's going to grow up working menial jobs and live an obscure and meaningless life, in his eyes, and that's what the movie's about.

Charlie seems to have similar feelings, looking to the Catholic Church not only as a means of salvation and spiritual fulfillment but for meaning as well. Granted, that is a very common goal for people getting involved with religion of any kind, but even more in Charlie's case. He is certainly the level-headed one between him and Johnny, but his future is not a whole lot brighter. Regardless of how much more responsible Charlie is than Johnny or how hard he tries to get Johnny to straighten out and pay off his debts, they both live in the same world, and so do their debtors. It is a world that is described in the lyrics of one of the songs in the movie –

"Have you ever had a wish sandwich? It's the kind where you take two pieces of bread and wish you had some meat."

This might sound ridiculous but it wasn`t until 1991 that I got into De Niro , Keitel and Scorsese in a big way . I`d just seen the classic TAXI DRIVER and eagerly got my dad to tape MEAN STREETS off Sky television . Unfortunately I thought I`d either given my dad a bad tape or the video hadn`t been tuned into the TV station properly since the picture quality was very poor and everything was filmed in a sickly red colour and that`s just the bits I could make out because for most of the movie the contrast was terrible with everything being dimly lit . It wasn`t until a couple of nights ago when I saw MEAN STREETS on network TV that I realised that the poor picture quality wasn`t anything to do with duff videotapes or out of tune video recorders - It was down to the fact that the original print suffers from some terrible lighting and cinematography that gives the impression that the movie was made on 8mm by a bunch of twelve year old boys

That`s bad enough but what brings the film down ( And I noticed this on first viewing in 1991 ) is that Scorsese has forgotten to write a plot to his screenplay . I think Martin Scorsese is god where making movies is concerned but not even he can escape criticism by making a movie that goes nowhere . For the most part MEAN STREETS resembles those Harry Endfield characters The Scousers with New York accents

" You alright Johnny Boy ? "

" You asking me if I`m alright ? "

" Yeah I am . What the f*** you gonna do about it ? "

It`s like this all the way through the running time up until the last ten minutes when Marty finally realises he`s got to introduce an incident in order to finish the film

The acting from Harvey Keitel is totally convincing while De Niro is superb ( Something that can`t be said for most of his recent performances ) but by writing a low concept hyper realistic screenplay Scorsese has effectively ruined the movie in its conception . Ask yourself this : If the driving force behind the movie wasn`t Martin Scorsese would you have regarded MEAN STREETS so highly ?

'Mean Streets (1973)' is seasoned with sprinklings of greatness, at times showing shades of what Scorsese would go on to do (i.e. 'Goodfellas (1990)'). Despite some solid acting throughout and a few entertaining sequences, though, the film generally falls flat thanks to the fact that there really isn't all that much of a plot and, as such, there isn't any real drama to latch onto. The result is a picture which feels much longer than it is and is also actually rather boring, floating along from set-piece to set-piece without any compelling connective tissue. It ends just as it seems to get going, too. 5/10

This is a well acted and stylish film which is let down by a poor script.

Keitel is great in the lead and De Niro steals a lot of scenes as the out of control friend but the good cast are wasted.

Nothing much happens. A little action and violence but that is it. It is a slight character study of a nice guy living in a bad place but that wasn't enough to sustain my interest.

I was expecting a lot having heard the name and read some of then comments on this site as well as seeing the quality of the cast and I was extremely disappointed.

I was bored throughout.

Scorsese's first film, the interesting catastrophe "Boxcar Bertha," marked his birth as a director, but it was with his second feature, "Mean Streets" that we witnessed the birth of an artist. Most of "Mean Streets" is slightly unfocused with a simplistic plot based around a lot of machismo grandstanding and long bouts of boring dialog (occasionally made interesting by DeNiro's off-kilter star-making turn as Johnny-Boy), with spats of visceral violence (far less gory here than in later Scorcese pics), and a visual bravado that seems slightly less disciplined but no less entertaining than your standard Scorsese crime flick.

Despite its drawbacks (mainly due to youth and inexperience), the template was set. The opening credits (done to the tune of "Be My Baby") suck you right into the film, and the rest of the movie is peppered with Scorsese's loving treatment of popular music that would later become one of his most endearing hallmarks. The basic premise featuring Harvey Keitel as Charlie (the young hood with a heart of gold and conflicted internally by the religion of the Church and the religion of the Streets), Robert DeNiro as Johnny-Boy (the equally loved and hated loose-canon brother figure), and Amy Robinson as Theresa (the woman our hero wants to put on a pedestal as a saint but often treats like a whore), is a trifecta of archetypes we see repeated again and again in Scorsese's films (most obviously in "Casino" with the DeNiro-Pesci-Stone characters, and most subversively in "The Last Temptation of Christ" with Jesus-Judas-Mary Magdalene). The religious iconography, the brotherhood of crooks, the attraction to the gangster lifestyle, the keen eye for depicting violence in artistic and startling ways...these are displayed here in "Mean Streets" in their rawest form.

Though flawed in many ways, "Mean Streets" set the stage and laid the the template for the type of film Scorsese would perfect seventeen years later with "Goodfellas." This heralded the arrival of a new talent and a new genre, and the world of film has thankfully never been the same.

This movie is definitely not being like an usual crime-drama and those expecting at typical Scorsese classic are also wrong to do so. It's one of the earliest movies out of his career and perhaps you should see this movie more as a test-case for his future crime epics. In that regard alone this movie is already being an interesting and significant watch.

For me, it's definitely being understandable why someone wouldn't like this movie. It isn't necessarily following a main plot line, which perhaps lets the movie feel a bit messy and simplistic. And that could be even more so the case for you since the movie of course isn't being a very slick or expensive looking one. I however feel this is actually being one of the movie its greatest strengths.

Because it isn't really following a main story the movie feels more like a raw and realistic one instead. It's just about a couple of simple and average guys, trying to make it in the world of crime, in Little Italy. They are small fish and the movie is also focusing on the smaller things. It doesn't ever attempts to be more than it in fact truly is and you could say that the movie is being a very humble and honest made movie, with a notable true love and passion for the genre as well.

I hear everybody talking about Robert De Niro's performance and character in this movie but to me the true heart and center of this movie was Harvey Keitel. He's also really the one main character in this movie and his story lines are being the most important ones for the progress of it. Think everybody is talking about De Niro because he is the bigger star now and has a long history with Scorsese, which all started out with this movie but honestly, the best performance of the movie is being given by Keitel! Not saying that De Niro is bad of course in this. On the contrary! But he's getting enough attention for it already, while Keitel is being the one that gets to shine the most in this.

It's also a movie with some definitely great and powerful moments in it. The movie manages to become an affective one with some of its emotions and developments. Some moments and setups more or less got used later on by Scorsese again, for some of his far better known movies. Scorsese fans shall most likely marvel at this movie and notice great little touches and story approaches in it, for which Scorsese later on would get known and recognized for.

A great little crime movie, though not just for everybody.

8/10

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How can you endlessly watch a total screw-up borrow from the mob, annoy the only friend he has, and basically wreck his life without wanting to run away from it all? When the screw-up is played by young Robert DeNiro you are fascinated, you don't want to turn away. MEAN STREETS was not the debut of both Martin Scorcese or his stars Harvey Kietel and Robert deNiro. They struggled in the field for some time. This is the film that told the world, new head-honchos have arrived on the screen! MEAN STREETS tells of low-rent street hoods in Little Italy. Harvey Kietel plays the one hood whose a voice of reason, who doesn't mess up all the time, who is smart enough to avoid trouble. When DeNiro's Johnny Boy is first seen here, he is playing infantile tricks, and is telling his friend how he can't go in half the stores around him because he owes everybody money. Martin Scorcese uses a gritty documentary-shooting style to unfold his movie. It remains probably the best film of 1973 (But 1973 was not one of the best years for movies.)

I wondered why I had never heard of this movie before. De Niro, Keitel, Scorosese? It should be good right? No, it was pretty bad. It was almost like they just put odd scenes in here and there that really didn't make sense to what little plot the movie had. I'm still not sure what entirely happened in the film. I totally didn't understand the tiger scene or why they put the Jewish girl in the bar scene in the film.. They didn't fit or make any sense at all. I'm glad I watched though. Now I can put it in my mental notes of what movie NOT to watch in the future.

Mean Streets has all the characteristics we have come to associate with Scorsese - the fluid camerawork, the expressionistic lighting, the sudden explosions of violence, the eclectic soundtrack. In later films, he took cinema to new heights with the flowering of his technical skills and the broadening of his material, but Mean Streets remains unsurpassed for the emotional intensity which only a young director, passionate about film and intent on making a personal statement, could achieve.

The theme of the film is contained in the famous first line 'You don't make up for your sins in church; you do it in the streets' (a Scorsese voice-over). An extended preface which delineates the nature of the film and its characters before the narrative begins includes brief cameo scenes introducing the four protagonists (a much copied device: see, for example, Trainspotting).

Scorsese's alter-ego is played as in the earlier 'Who's That Knocking At My Door?' by Harvey Keitel, giving the performance of his young life. He is Charlie, a junior member of a Mafia family who collects debts and runs numbers, but who also has aspirations to sainthood. The other key figure is his anarchic friend, Johnny Boy, played with ferocious energy by de Niro.

Charlie is introduced coming out of confession, dissatisfied with his penance. Reciting words doesn't mean anything to him and he can't believe that forgiveness could come so easily. Deliberately burning his hand in a candle flame is a more effective reminder of the pain of hell. The camera follows Charlie from the altar into Tony's bar, a red-lit inferno, and when Johnny Boy comes in, to the tune of Jumping Jack Flash, Charlie recognises that this is the form his penance will take. Johnny Boy is the cross he must bear. 'You send me this, Lord' he says resignedly.

Johnny Boy's irresponsibility and impulsiveness make him everything Charlie, with his controlled, anxious, guilt-ridden persona, is not. The argument which follows in the back room about Johnny Boy's debts deserves its reputation as one of the great scenes in seventies cinema.

Charlie's life moves in well worn, claustrophobic circles. Hardly anyone outside his immediate circle appears in the film and other ethnic groups are viewed with suspicion. The characters seldom appear outdoors or in daylight. Charlie inhabits a world of bars, pool halls and cinemas. In the one scene he appears in sunlight, he looks ill at ease. The suit and heavy overcoat he wears (reflecting his Mafiosi ambitions) look distinctly out of place on a beach. It's significant that in this scene Teresa, his girlfriend, scorns his small-time gangsterism and challenges him to join her in moving away to a new life. But Charlie is trapped by his desire to please his uncle.

Scorsese has said that his choice in adolescence lay between becoming a priest and becoming a gangster and that he failed on both counts. Mean Streets allows him to explore that choice to devastating effect.

I'm going to give this review exactly the amount of time the film deserves, i.e. not much.

I sat through about 40 minutes of this and came to two conclusions - 1, it's boring in a dreary, uneventful way, and 2, the sound design is all over the place, with much of the dialogue lost to music.

I didn't care about any of the characters, and the pool-hall fight sequence was laughably bad in terms of choreography.

This is a classic?!?! What, because it's made by a certain director and stars certain actors?

Question - In the early 1970s, what was the one sure-fire way to totally insult and absolutely outrage a typical, Italian, NYC, low-life, punk-gangster (and probably get your nose busted, as well)?

Answer - (Are you ready for this?) - Call him a "mook". That's right, a mook (which supposedly means arsehole, idiot, whatever). And, in Mean Streets, calling some cheap, degenerate hood a "mook" was even worse than calling him a "queer".... (I ain't kidding!)

You know, after watching such movies like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, New York New York, The Last Temptation Of Christ, etc., I find myself seriously puzzled, wondering how the hell Martin Scorsese ever managed to become the respected and revered director that he apparently is today. If you ask me, I think Scorsese's movies suck a lot of the time.

Containing some really badly-staged violence (with minimal bloodshed) and idiotic dialogue (punctuated by lots of dead-air moments conveniently masked by its rock music soundtrack), Mean Streets' biggest and most damaging deficit was actor Robert De Niro.

As the asinine, Johnny Boy character, De Niro's annoyingly quirky mannerisms, along with his sickening fingernail chewing, really got on my nerves, big-time.

All-in-all - I think Mean Streets was a movie strictly meant for the likes of mooks. (Ha!) To me, this picture was an absolutely horrible look at the 1970s (which appears to be one of the most despicable decades of the last century).

I was completely bored watching this movie. The character of Johnny Boy is one of the most annoying characters I've ever seen on film and I have no idea why anyone would protect him, help him, or assist him in any way, ever! I wanted to shoot him on my tv minutes after he came on screen! And what is the plot of this story? The most annoying man on earth owes someone money and he doesn't' pay? I'd give it just one star, but the music was good.

Director Martin Scorsese kicked around the indie circuit and second-unit work out in Hollywood before breaking through as a director with this melodrama set in New York's "Little Italy" district. Harvey Keitel plays a struggling Catholic trying to keep clean, and the character is most likely a highly personal one based on Scorsese in his early days (or someone very close to him). Intelligently-made film about desperate characters living on the edge isn't especially profound, though it is intrinsically exciting in a show-offy way. Scorsese, who also penned the screenplay with Mardik Martin from Scorsese' original treatment, proves to have an uncanny knack for kick-starting a scene using pop and rock music to its best advantage, and, in his now-characteristic way, he intermingles all his violent, tough-talking characters with the stunning assurance of a technical veteran. Keitel's performance is adept and multi-shaded, though Robert De Niro doesn't quite make that initial strong impression. **1/2 from ****

I admit to having a fascination with the work of director Martin Scorcese and his often cast actor Robert de Niro so it is with some viewing trepidation that I went back to visit his early work from fifty years ago (at the time of this review) a film that I and countless other people of my generation have overlooked not on purpose as such but because his later cannon receives so much more kudos.

I very quickly gathered that the film is more low budget, gritty and darker than his flashier later exploits but don't let that destract you. If anything it makes it all the more a viewing pleasure. Instead of the big mafia types of other Scorcese films, Mean Streets goes further down the food chain as such to the lower tier criminals of the Little Italy area of New York City. The gangster violence is just as frenetic but with scenes more grimy, down to earth and less budgetary.

The film deals with several characters in the scene, mainly Charlie (Harvey Keitel) who knows his demons and that of his wisecracking, immature younger friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) who owns several thousand dollars to loan sharks in Little Italy. Added to the mix of the screenplay is that Charlie is having a sexual relationship with Johnny Boy's cousin Teresa, who is epileptic or described callously as 'sick in the head' by one of the mafia loan sharks in one scene.

Johnny Boy is a complex character who has scenes of immaturity and manic depression in equal measure enabling De Niro to show the film viewer of 1973 upon the film's release his obvious talent. A talent that Scorcese was to put to use in his stock company.

The film's soundtrack is an ode to the musical tastes of Scorcese and a clue of what lie ahead in his directorial style.

Scenes of violence and bloodshed prevail as the film develops into a crescendo of a shoot out, car crash scene. Also look out for a great pool room brawl that are reminders of past great movies and future ones ahead.

My advice to a younger generation who may have albeit accidentally overlooked this film is to watch it and read about it. A fascinating early Scorcese film.

Despite the interest an early Scorsese/De Niro collaboration might hold and this film's influence on the mafia genre, it came across to me as a B-movie in a lot of ways. The script is weak, it has a plot that meanders through randomness (or barely exists), and the performances from the cast were mediocre at best, De Niro excepted. Scorsese gets the gritty feeling of the streets of New York right, and the soundtrack is solid, but that was about it. I had no interest in these meathead, cliché characters or their dreary story, and this was tough to finish.

Mean Streets is a raw film which would raised at the time eyebrows and heckles in equal measures and showed off the embryonic talents of then rising director Martin Scorsese. He borrows his filmmaking influences such as Powell & Pressburger's Black Narcissus but as Michael Powell once remarked to him, 'there is just too much red lighting dear boy!'

However I first watched this film almost twenty years after its release and found the film hard going. Its nice to see a young Keitel and De Niro showing off their acting chops but the film felt boring and its style had been copied by other directors since that time.

Seeing the film again recently I can appreciate Scorsese trying to being a new energy to New York set films in a way that young British film makers did in the early 1960s with the kitchen sink dramas showing a rawness and verve to working class Britain.

Here is tale of low life hoods in little Italy. Keitel's Charlie mixes religious guilt with working for his Uncle who is a mobster and looking after his friend, Johnny Boy (De Niro) who is both psychotic and an idiot. Keitel has a girlfriend, Teresa who is Johnny's cousin and an epileptic but his relationship with her is furtive because his uncle disapproves of her because of her epilepsy. At one point he wants to date a black woman and again loses his nerve because of what people might think.

De Niro is a live-wire as Johnny Boy, pulling stupid stunts, getting involve in fights and generally being a jerk. He and Al Pacino were playing these kind of characters in theatres off Broadway for many years so they had a grounding on these New York street kids.

Richard Romanus and David Proval round up the main players who are more astute, determined and likely to succeed as they know Johnny Boy will just drag everybody down but Charlie does not see it.

Things come to a head because Johnny Boy owes money and is unable to pay it back and unwilling to pay it back. That is very much it plot wise. Until then its a slice of life drama as we see a microcosm of Little Italy society. Its a film that dazzles with its technical style which is typically Scorsese. However it also lacks heart which in my opinion something Scorsese will show in his later films as it leaves you cold.