Martin Scorsese is my favorite working director. True, there are a number of others, living and dead, whose work I greatly enjoy. I always get a kick out of the work of Quentin Tarantino and Billy Wilder. It’s rare that I find a Spielberg movie that isn’t at least entertaining. Stanley Kubrick has more hits than misses for me. And I do tend to grade Clint Eastwood on a curve. But Scorsese is my favorite, having made more of my all-time favorite films than anyone else I can think of off the top of my head. And yet, somehow, I hadn’t gotten around to the movie that more or less put Scorsese on the map: Mean Streets.
I might have gotten to it sooner if it weren’t for that stupid Secondhand Lions thing…
The movie follows one Charlie Cappa (Harvey Keitel), a young man whose uncle is a local mob boss in New York City. Charlie, in an early scene, is in church looking for forgiveness for his sins. But because he’s in the mob and routinely gets involved in crime, he knows simply saying the prayers the priest gives him for penance won’t work. Instead, he’ll need to gain forgiveness from God through his deeds. That may be where his friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) comes into play. His introductory scene shows him blowing up a mail box, and many of his actions seem to be there just to cause trouble for himself and anyone hanging out with him. Likewise, he owes $2000 to a mutual friend, lone shark Michael (Richard Romanus) but lacks a means to make enough money to even begin to pay him off. Charlie seems to see the way to go is to somehow get Johnny to work a job and pay his debt. Too bad Johnny has no interest in doing any of that.
It likewise doesn’t help that Charlie’s uncle is advising against Charlie’s spending any time with either Johnny or Johnny’s cousin Teresa (Amy Robinson). Charlie is seeing Teresa on the sly, but she has epilepsy, and that, to Charlie’s uncle, isn’t any different from the generally volatile Johnny. Charlie knows better, but he also wants to have his own restaurant.
Much of the movie is, besides hitting all of the little moments Scorsese is known for, something of a slice of life for Charlie trying to do the right thing while still being a criminal. There’s a moment when a restaurant owner says he can’t make his weekly payment. Any other mob movie, including Scorsese’s own Goodfellas, would show the owner get beaten until he gives up whatever money he has. Here, he just says the mob can take his restaurant with a resigned shrug. Charlie’s uncle, then, advises Charlie just wait for the restaurant’s business to improve. The whole thing seems more like a casual relationship, and while there are violent moments in the movie, the mobsters seems to get more jollies out of simple scams. However, that all changes when Johnny is around. In many ways, the movie reminded me of On the Waterfront, where the main character had to decide where his loyalties lay. The big difference here is Charlie’s choices are an unstable friend and the mafia.
Really, this one hit all of the notes Scorsese is known for, including the one I didn’t care for this time: the soundtrack. Scorsese is known for being able to punctuate a scene with song, often some oldie he probably grew up with, but Mean Streets is outright saturated with them. While the movie expertly shows Charlie trying to find a balance in his life between his work and his faith, the music seemed to play over far too many scenes for my taste. It was a bit obtrusive. But that’s a minor complaint, and I am glad I finally saw this movie, something that didn’t involve a used large cat.
Grade: A-
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