Customer Reviews

Mean Streets (Special Edition)

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This is a fantastic film, and I'm going to tell you why I think so, and by the time you finish reading this, you just might change your mind about it, or run out and have to see it.

The music is great. Perfectly fits the time period and setting, I dunno how much they had to pay in royalties for the songs in this film, but I love em'.

The camera work is fantastic. There's a scene where the camera gives you charlie's viewpoint, stumbling, wobbling across the bar, lights flashing, people dancing, music blaring, then zooms out to his smiling happy face. Then there's the filming of the street festival and the overall way which New York is captured so perfectly. It feels like you are really in the city, the movie has that gritty feeling to it.

The dialogue is great, many of it is ad libed by Deniro and Keitel. This is the beginning of ad libbed dialogue for deniro, the culmination being his speech in front of the mirror in taxi driver; "You talkin' to me"? There's a scene where Keitel confronts Deniro outside the bar to ask him about his debt, the exchange is perfect, it could never have been written and its executed beautifully.

The acting is also fantastic throughout.

So, great acting, great filmwork and great dialogue all come together to create a wonderfully realistic film.

Now, the end of the movie, maybe you didn't understand it, so I'll explain the film. I'll try not to spoil the ending.

Ok, so Charlie does some bad things, he works for the mob after all, and he wants to repent for his sins, so, after going to church and then later seeing jonny boy in a bar he thinks that God has asked him to repent for his sins on the streets, by helping out Jonny Boy. He doesn't believe that saying a few hail mary's or confessing washes away one's sins. So enter the walking train wreck that is Jonny Boy.

Now, what type of person is Jonny Boy? He has no sense of responsibility, he does not answer to anyone, he does not obey any rules, never does what is expected of him.

Hmm, so what type of person is Charlie? There are several scenes in the film that let you know what type of person charlie is. The statement Charlie loves everybody and everybody loves Charlie almost sums it up. Charlie wants to please everyone. But his life is full of conflict. You can't be in the mob and be religious, it just doesn't work that way. You can't hang out with guys who are racist and date an African American. These are just a few examples, but suffice to stay that Charlie wants everyone to like him, the local mob boss, his friends, his God, but he also wants to be happy and do the things he wants to do. There is conflict in all of this. Some of the other people that charlie wants to please, eg., God and the mob boss, have conflicting agendas. Some of the people that charlie wants to please conflict with what he personally wants to do with his life, eg. he is embarassed to be dating the epileptic because he thinks it shows weakness to his friends, but he loves her and she makes him happy.

You cannot please everyone. The irony of this film, and this is a little spoiler, is that while charlie is trying to save jonny boy, he should take a few lessons from him. Jonny Boy does whatever he wants without thinking about who he might upset, or disappoint. Charlie is the complete opposite. Yeah, Jonny Boy is destructive and his life is falling apart, but the point is that the two of them represent two opposite extremes. This is why the end of the film is tragic, its the lesson that you can't make everyone happy, that life is full of conflict, the conflict may be between different people in your life which you try to please, or between yourself and other people in your life. These basic conflicts and how we deal with them sum up who we are as human beings.

So there are many reasons why this film is great, I highly recommend giving it a second chance. I watch it every once in awhile and it really is one of my favorite films.

It is hard to even start a review of this classic, because there are so many highlights to address. This film is basically the precursor to many of Scorsese's other classics, such as Goodfella's, Casino, etc., as well as films by other directors, such as Tarantino. For example, I believe this is the first film to use popular music as a background to many of the scenes, and now this is seen as commonplace. The dialouge is awesome, especially between DeNiro and Keitel, and this film is really just a great period piece as a look at Italian-American life in New York's Little Italy during the early 1970's.

This had to be one of the worst films I have ever seen. Just because it had big names, didn't make it good. I do have to say however that when hammered, this film is one of the funniest I have ever seen. I mean, it takes a pair to check your pants at a coat check. I only recommend this film to the heavily innebriated.

My only reason for seeing this film is because Robert DeNiro is in it. Good 1960's music and good Italian music, but good music doesn't always make a film good. This is a horrible film. Waste of my time.

I just recently sit down to watch what I figured would be an original, 70's masterpiece. I mean, Keitel, De Niro, Scorsese, how could it be anything but good,...right? Wrong. This movie has great acting by Keitel & De Niro, however the plot is absurd! Let me break it down for ya:

Charlie (Keitel) runs errands for his uncle, Giovanni (the local mob boss). Charlie's main buddies are Michael, the goodhearted loanshark (played by Richard Romanus) and Johnny Boy (De Niro), a petty & delinquint loser, who happens to owe Michael quite a bit of money. Early on in the movie, Charlie is visiting a guy named Oscar, at his restaurant, to "collect" for his uncle. Oscar tells Charlie that he can't make the payments to his uncle because his business partner has skipped outta town. Oscar knows that he has no choice but to turn the restaurant over to Charlie's uncle, Giovanni. Giovanni, in turn, is planning to give the restaurant to Charlie, for his excellent work. His only requests to Charlie is to stop hanging around with Johnny Boy, and to keep an eye on Johnny Boy's cousin, Theresa, (who happens to live right next to Charlie). Giovanni further states to Charlie, to not get involved with Theresa because she is a "freak",(a "freak" because she has epilepsy). We find out from uncle Giovanni that Johnny Boy & Theresa are from another 'family' that had past ties with Charlie's family. Well, what do you know, Charlie is already 'secretly' dating Theresa. Meanwhile, Michael keeps hustling Charlie about Johnny Boy's debts. Charlie keeps assuring Michael that he'll talk to Johnny Boy. And everytime he talks to Johnny Boy, it goes in one ear, and out the other.

You got 2 hours to kill?

Quilt a blanket!
Re-arange that old collection of Oktoberfest bier steins!
Whatever you do, skip this 2 hour YAWN-A-THON!

Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are my favorite movies and I love Keitel's work too. But this was an all around letdown. Flat, boring, pointless, I can't find one thing positive to say about it.

Anyone who says that this film is stupid and that is has no point is themselves stupid. This film has a terrific flair and art-house quality that can only be found in the best independent films. Mean Streets is much less conventional than many of Scorsese's other films which is why there are reviews here condemning it for not conforming to a straight crime film trajectory. The film simply observes life in the slummier parts of New York city with an unflinching, direct cinema perspective. The film is best enjoyed by those familiar with european art cinema. Scorsese draws on conventions propounded by the french new wave, soviet montage and french poetic realism. If you are familiar with these terms and have not seen this film, this should be enough to entice you, or ward you off, depending on your convictions regarding European Art Cinema. This is a great first film and one of the better films in Scorsese's cannon.

This movie is great mainly because of the acting of Robert Deniro. He is explosive in his role as Johnny Boy a degenerate who owes bookies and shylocks. His friend Charlie, played by Harvey Keitel tries to save him. Movie shows little Italy in the seventies and has an authentic NY feel.

Martin Scorsese's most autobiographical movie bestows an energy and a vibrancy that hasn't diminished in the 30 years since it was made. Part of this wonderful energy is created by Scorsese's use of music, a cinematic trait he has continued to use successfully in all of his best movies. In fact in 'Mean Streets', Scorsese's use of 2 different styles of music, Italian and rock, can be seen as an expression of the divergence between the older and younger members of the Italian-American community in which he grew up. Scorsese himself valued the use of music so much, that he was willing to fork out $30,000 just for the rights to use the 2 Rolling Stones songs in the picture and this in a movie which cost $750,000 to make.

Another powerful aspect of the film is the acting. Along with the intense charactarizations created by the actors, there also seems to be quite a lot of improvisation used (especially in the backroom scene where DeNiro tries to explain his losses to Kietel). This creates an air of pathetic authenticity, a welcome attribute in most of Scorsese's films.

Ironically despite the fact that the film is set on the 'Mean Streets' of New York, all the interior shots were filmed in L.A. with a different camera crew than the one that shot the exterior shots in Manhatten.

The film is also a visual document of the decline of Little Italy, much of which today is just an extended part of Chinatown.

A 'mook' by the way is Neapolition for bigmouth.

Following the success of his thesis project "Who's that knocking at my door", Scorcese returned in 1973 with Mean Streets. Like a lot of other of Scorcese's films, Mean Streets explores the catholic guilt of the main character(Keitel) while drawing a contrast to another(DeNiro).
Keitel is near perfect in his role. In most other films, the audience would hardly consider Keitel a protagonist. He runs numbers, wacthes strippers, and does not "love" his girlfriend. However, when compared to Deniro's Johnny boy or some of the other characters in the film, one can't help but admire his altruism. In Mean Streets, Keitel plays the only role he is capable of playing well: A man stuck in two different worlds; In this case the world of clubs, dark alleys and violent street corners and the other more peaceful and disciplined world he strives for.
I don't care much for DeNiro's character, so I will not comment much on him, however it is only fitting that I reccomend some other films for Kietel fans on fans of this genre. Bad Lieutenant is the best place for any Keitel fan to start, but it is certainly not for the faint hearted. Taxi Driver also stars Keitel, but DeNiro is the main character. These films both tell the story of a man who is so fed up with the turmoil he observes every day on the streets, that he takes a road which eventually results in his own destruction.