Review of Mean Streets (1973) by Robert S — 06 Oct 2008

As the beginning of three of the most towering and successful careers in American cinema this is the perfect benchmark for all players to live up to.

Firstly there's Harvey Keitel, acquiring that worldly-wise quality he always seems to have whilst leaving room for hot-headed confrontations. Then there's Robert De Niro, at the spritely age of 30 playing an immature and volatile hood, but, ya got to love 'em. Of course, this is mainly Scorsese's film, setting up his life journey of Catholic interpretation of the sqaulid world around him, a world of mostly low-life, low-rent hoods who somehow manage to scratch a living. This fascination with life in the gutter, combined with his extraordinary timing of surging violence and lulling use of pop songs have been the source of some of modern cinema's greatest moments, from the pop-culture free flowing of Tarantino to the edgy, energetic and irreverant thrillers of Danny Boyle and Takeshi Kitano.

As it stands 'Mean Streets' is a magnificent acheivement, a paean to the selfish creature you see scurrying about the streets at night. No one had ever seen such a raw and pulverising piece of cinema in 1973, and more than 30 years on its perfect mix of violence, emotion and pureness of form have never been matched.