Mean Streets (1973) review

Director Martin Scorsese, a newcomer at the time of its release, must be credited for his direction taken with this crime film considering the year earlier brought to us the greatest crime film ever created, which is portrayed as a big and epic mafia film. However, Mean Streets is the complete opposite of Mean Streets. It has a low budget, has a small scoped story and takes crime films back a few years. Even with all the changes, Mean Streets is a rather enjoyable film by master filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who would later go on to make far greater films.

This is where Mean Streets is separated from other crime masterpieces such as The Godfather Parts I & II, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas and even other crime films such as the absurd Scarface. The story is such a shorter part of the story that the essential focus isn’t always around the story but more so the characters. Here is where I have one of my issues. Whilst the story is told early on about Johnny Boy (Robert de Niro) owing money to many people in the streets and how he is basically a con, the story come to a point in the middle of the film with Harvey Keitel’s Charlie and Teresa, Johnny’s cousin which is all about romance which completely threw me away from the story. Not that romance is a bad thing, in fact it works perfectly in The Godfather but here, it felt as if the entire focus suddenly shifted which made my attention shift. From here, the story becomes less relevant until towards which is a rather pity considering that by the end of the film, the story folds up beautifully. It is truly a pity that a little more focus wasn’t spent on the basic story.

In one of his earliest films, Robert de Niro truly delivers a great performance as a semi psychotic teenaged man with a tendency to go off towards others and a tendency towards violence. De Niro completely embodies the character of Johnny Boy and is a rather pity that he didn’t receive the role of Sonny in The Godfather in the previous year. The following year, De Niro keeps up his fantastic acting as Vito in The Godfather Part II and then as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. From Mean Streets, De Niro became an acting legend. Twenty years before Reservoir Dogs, Harvey Keitel starred in Scorsese’s Mean Streets as an uncertain and much more friendly and thought provoking man by the name of Charlie, who throughout the film sticks up for Johnny and for others. Keitel too, delivers a fantastic performance. The rest of the cast all give good performances each being able to act to Scorsese’s writing. De Niro shows strength, power, greed, violence and even corruption from an innocent boy to a thief. Keitel perfectly brings to the table what crime life can do to people and is used to separate others from him being able to illustrate what life is like for those who are involved in everyday crime.

By now, Martin Scorsese is a masterful director but back then, he wasn’t a name. In Mean Streets, whilst definitely providing a good premise and some fantastic actors, as well as an engaging script (just like all his other films), Mean Streets is easily his weakest film I’ve seen (I have not seen Hugo and his more recent work) Whilst a very interesting first act, the second act of this film falls underwater with the third act having to rise from the water which it eventually does. However, when viewed as one piece, Mean Streets can be a little tiring, a little messy and a little tough to relate to, especially when a love story is rather suddenly introduced and is eventually one of the central focuses. Whilst a definite good film with great performances, Mean Streets didn’t meet my expectations but is nevertheless, a film that I enjoyed even though it can be a little messy as one film.

Grade- 7.5/10