Review: Scorsese's 'Mean Streets' ages well

"Mean Streets" is a down and dirty valentine from Scorsese to his past

March 25, 1998
Web posted at: 10:02 p.m. EST (0302 GMT)

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- Prepare yourself for more guns and pasta. A brand new print of Martin Scorsese's 1973 masterpiece, "Mean Streets," will soon be released to major cities in honor of its 25th anniversary. If you haven't had the opportunity to see it (or haven't seen it for a while), you should get to the theater, pronto.

To call the movie a Mafia film wouldn't do it justice, and, to some degree, cheapens its accomplishment. This is Scorsese at his intensely personal best. The movie's over-saturated images are like someone's fever dream, the brilliantly utilized soundtrack his permanently ingrained Top 40. A lot of the rush, though, comes from the director's understanding of movie audience dynamics. As focused as Scorsese is, he still revels in the visceral impact of almost musically profane tirades and unexpected violence.

Incredibly, it really wasn't until 1990's "Goodfellas" that the general public picked up on Scorsese's obsessive vision, and, as remarkable as that film is, the trip was already becoming a little too frolicsome for its own good. Though "Mean Streets" is in many ways the predecessor of that particular piece of mob archaeology, it doesn't find Scorsese working on such a broad, nearly giddy canvas.

Shot on the run with the crew from his previous film, the so-so B-movie "Boxcar Bertha," "Mean Streets" is Scorsese's down-and-dirty valentine to the recklessly passionate world of his youth. The close-knit competition and camaraderie of New York's Italian immigrant neighborhoods have been overrun in recent decades by the city's natural "growth" and evolution. "Mean Streets" is a slice of life that no longer exists (and the immigrant culture's disintegration is a poignant subtext of the film) but Scorsese immerses you in that world's rhythms and rituals to a degree that, even now, makes it very real indeed.

Harvey Keitel stars as Charlie, a small-time hood who's smart enough to know that if he plays his connections right he's primed to waltz his way into something approaching the big-time. In most respects, he's just another guy from the neighborhood. He and his friends are forever caught up in near-comic scams that garner them little more than a modicum of respect, but he's got a flashy sense of style and the foresight to see that his destiny lies in the hands of his mobster uncle. Charlie, unlike his buddies, knows what the problem is -- it's time for him to play with the big boys, but the little boys are keeping him down ... or at least one of them is.

Martin Scorsese

Charlie's albatross (or, in Scorsese's Catholic vision, his deliverer of street penance) is his friend Johnny Boy (the astonishing Robert De Niro), a near-lunatic who nurtures what could politely be referred to as a lack of respect for every living human being outside of his own mother. Charlie has gotten it into his head (and Scorsese relays the theory via beautifully realized voice-overs) that he's some kind of wandering gangster saint, that Johnny Boy is his burden to bear if he's going to live a "clean" life in a world that doesn't exactly call for spiritual purity. Johnny Boy, who gets more and more self-destructive as the movie progresses, is a test of Charlie's commitment to faith and family, and you can sense that Charlie knows he'll never survive the ordeal.

This is all dealt with in near free-form style. Johnny Boy's inability to pay back the money that he owes several loan sharks (including Richard Romanus' simple-but-deadly Michael) becomes the focal point of much of the action, but the movie is composed of seemingly unrelated incidents that keep blowing up in Charlie's face. Eventually, both he and Johnny Boy have to pay dearly for their indiscretions.

Scorsese's camera work throughout the movie is remarkable. In recent years he's been known to get carried away with the panning and craning (see the absurdly unmotivated histrionics of his 1991 version of "Cape Fear" if you can stand it again), but in "Mean Streets" the camera is virtually one of the guys. The movie is brimming with memorable shots and editing techniques -- the opening jump cut, cued by the drum beat of The Ronettes' "Be My Baby"; Charlie drunkenly gliding through his favorite nightclub, as if floating on air; Johnny Boy's slow motion entrance to that same club as "Jumping Jack Flash" blares from the jukebox; a fight in a pool hall in which the camera actually runs after the participants, then backs away when things get too heated. There's a palpable sensuality to the camera movement. Scorsese gets charged up by this environment, and it shows.

For all of that, though, the movie's most enduring legacy may be its dialogue, some of which was invented on the spot by the actors. One look at this and Quentin Tarantino will immediately come into clearer focus. Some of the exchanges are like a thrill ride -- angry, humorous, and full of unexpected twists and turns.

This includes a remarkable (and lengthy) backroom exchange between De Niro and Keitel that touches on everything from Johnny Boy's gambling debts, both characters' intimate knowledge of the denizens of their neighborhood, and Charlie's inability to hold a grudge against someone he loves so dearly. There's a striking precision to this conversation that's rarely found in today's movies. This is the best script that Scorsese himself has worked on, and the argument could be made that it's still the most richly-textured piece of writing that he's ever brought to the screen.

If you don't live in a city where "Mean Streets" will be showing, get to a video store and rent it. We've come to expect so little from our movies nowadays, we're practically desensitized. If you think "not so bad" is the same thing as "good," you really should see something this great. I'll certainly be there, probably more than once.

"Mean Streets" is wall-to-wall with profanity. Though there isn't a great deal of violence, what's there is supremely effective. (That's Scorsese himself who kisses the gun, then leans out the car window and fires a couple of important shots near the end of the movie. Too cool.) Rated R. 110 minutes.

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