Mean Streets

by Robbo

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Posted on 7 May 2021

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Rating -

Mean Streets is a 1973 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese and co-written by Scorsese and Mardik Martin. The film stars Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. It was released by Warner Bros. on October 2, 1973. De Niro won the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as “Johnny Boy” Civello.

Charlie, a young Italian-American man in New York’s Little Italy, is hampered by his feeling of responsibility towards his reckless younger friend Johnny Boy, a small-time gambler and ne’er-do-well who refuses to work and owes money to many loan sharks.

Charlie is also having a secret affair with Johnny’s cousin Teresa, who has epilepsy and is ostracized because of her condition—especially by Charlie’s uncle Giovanni, a powerful mafioso. Giovanni wants Charlie to distance himself from Johnny, saying “honourable men go with honourable men.”

This was Scorsese’s first feature film of his own design and was based on events Scorsese saw almost regularly while growing up in New York City’s Little Italy.

Mean Streets is not really so much a gangster movie but a film about growing up around gangsters. It’s treated as being an everyday part of their lives, so being drawn into the mob life is almost inevitable.

Both De Niro and Keitel turn in electrifying performances, really tapping into the true souls of their characters. Keitel being the guilt ridden Catholic who acts as an elder brother to the young, reckless De Niro.

The film is beautifully shot, using the streets of Little Italy as a character in itself and is edited in a way that gives it a gritty, chaotic realism, particularly the violent scenes.

Mean Streets marked Scorsese’s arrival as a film maker and should certainly be high on anyone’s list of films to watch before you die.

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