Two Takes on MEAN STREETS

Cole's Rating: ★★★ ½

Jesse's Rating: ★★★ ½

Director: Martin Scorsese
Year: 1973

Cast: Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Amy Robinson

Genre: Crime/Drama
MPAA Rating: R

Cole's Take: “Ey! Ey! I payed you last Tuesday!”, proclaimed Robert De Niro in his 1973 role that put himself, along with Martin Scorsese, on the map in the film industry. What’s so great about Mean Streets is how personable it all is, and maybe that’s why it’s arguably Scorsese’s best work. The film digs into what he might have experienced while growing up in New York’s Little Italy, which makes it his most delicate movie of all time.

        Characters and dialogue, that’s what Mean Streets is all about. Not too much happens, and it doesn’t rate much as far as entertainment goes, but that’s alright because of how genuine the characters/performances are. Everything is very rawly shot, so it seems as if Martin Scorsese creates a semi-autobiographical reality, then has the camera spy on them in their everyday lives. You witness bar fights that are so sloppy and un-choreographed that you feel as if you’re watching the real thing; you witness low-lives fighting each other over a few bucks; you witness Charlie (played by Harvey Keitel, who gives one of his best performances) deciding between caring for the irresponsible, immature Johnny Boy (played by De Niro who never misses a beat), and working his way up in the small-time mob. You witness these things because you aren’t watching them, you’re living them along with Scorsese. He creates such well-crafted characters that you love and want to care for yourself, and then invents a harrowingly upsetting, yet realistic and highly effective conclusion that leaves the characters walking around with you after the credits role. What he does here is something that every filmmaker yearns to do, and that is make an authentic (and artistic) movie, that is echoed in every single movie by the same director that follows. Seeing as it was one of the first movies to put rock-and-roll into its soundtrack so effectively, there’s much more of that to come (seen in The Departed), as there is shocking cuts that happen from scene to scene (seen very often in The Color of Money), as there is De Niro performing like the cinematic equivalency of a “raging bull” (seen in, well, Raging Bull). I could go on and on. 

        To conclude, I’d say that while Mean Streets isn’t his best work, it’s still an incredible watch if you’re a patient and loving person. It’s not a typical Scorsese movie; it’s the original.

Jesse's Take: Mean Streets is Martin Scorsese's first real foray into his bravado directorial style for years to come. This film is a very personal, very insightful look at what he might of went through as a young man growing up in New York City's seedy district of Little Italy. There's a moderate mob element to the proceedings and an intense character study of Harvey Keitel's Charlie, a man who has to choose between looking out for his troubled friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro who's performance is the brilliant equivalent of a charging rhino) and moving up the chain of small time New York Mafia. Mean Streets is raw, somewhat improvised, and carries the feeling that the world's greatest living director saw the future of cinema years ahead of everybody else. The ending (which I could never reveal) is gut wrenching in ways that I can't describe.

        One of the best aspects you could pull from this pioneering indie (it sure feels like independent filmmaking) is that the all the characters make an impression on you. They stay with you long after the credits roll. To add to that, everything Scorsese made after Mean Streets goes back to Mean Streets. It's the blueprint for pretty much his whole body of work. During the first half of the film, Keitel utters the line, "twenty dollars, let's go to da movies!" Yeah, if you go to the movies, make it Mean Streets. It's a keeper.