Mean Streets
| Year: | 1973 |
| Director: | Martin Scorsese |
| Writer: | Martin Scorsese |
| Cast: | Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, David Carradine, Robert Carradine |
The precursor to a whole slew of New York Hood tales from some of the great Italian American directors of the modern era, from Coppola and Leone to Scorsese himself.
But it's now so old that instead of playing mob bosses or corrupt senior cops, De Niro and Keitel are street-level hustlers working the numbers and small time gambling. Keitel grapples with his conscience, unsatisfied with the Roman Catholic background he knows of committing sin after sin on the street and then having it washed conveniently away by the utterance of a few Hail Marys. De Niro is an out of control hoodlum who can't pay his debts and looks to be on the way to an early grave.
The authentic dialogue is there, the performances are as top notch as you'd expect, the violence is realistic, but there's one thing the movie lacks; a story. After forty minutes, I was so disinterested in and confused by what was going on I gave up.
But it's now so old that instead of playing mob bosses or corrupt senior cops, De Niro and Keitel are street-level hustlers working the numbers and small time gambling. Keitel grapples with his conscience, unsatisfied with the Roman Catholic background he knows of committing sin after sin on the street and then having it washed conveniently away by the utterance of a few Hail Marys. De Niro is an out of control hoodlum who can't pay his debts and looks to be on the way to an early grave.
The authentic dialogue is there, the performances are as top notch as you'd expect, the violence is realistic, but there's one thing the movie lacks; a story. After forty minutes, I was so disinterested in and confused by what was going on I gave up.