Review of Mean Streets (1973) by Michael Y — 27 Aug 2010

At first view, I didn't like Mean Streets that much, but after further analysing the film, the movie was highly original in it's time and was a great start for Martin Scorsese.

The movie is about an Italian-American gangster named Charlie (Harvey Keitel) who works for his head boss uncle in collecting debts. Everybody likes Charlie because he's a nice guy and he tries to be a good Catholic. Charlie is going to go up the ladder and own his own club, but he has one problem, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro). Johnny Boy takes loans left and right and doesn't pay anyone back, and Charlie tries to help him because of his good nature, and because he's in love with his cousin. Johnny Boy gets into real trouble and Charlie doesn't know how long he could help him anymore. The movie has a good story, but my biggest problem was that the whole movie was too simple and was quite disorientedly filmed. But after reading some critic reviews of the film, I might have been too quick to judge the film. Martin Scorsese created a very gritty and realistic gangster movie that the world had not seen yet.

Scorsese has always been a favourite of mine, and it's filmmaking done in this movie that's a great reason. Though the movie was shot in a quick and hazzy style, it was a style that no one had ever seen before, and that's a great reason to give credit to this movie. The Little-Italy scene is very trashy and realistic, and everyone dresses in "Italian Ghetto", which was quite a different look compared to other gangster films in the day. Surely, this movie became a great influence in cinema.

Overall, this movie was great. Awesome cast who would soon become legends, great filmmaking and a great soundtrack. The story might take a while to get anywhere interesting, but after watching the movie till the end, the connections between the characters seemed to matter and make sence. Mean Streets isn't about the deals that go down, it's about the struggle of a man who couldn't realize that you can't be on top if you're not mean.