NOTE: This review is from a DVD that’s part of the “Martin Scorsese Collection” Box Set. This movie can also be bought as a stand-alone disc.
In New York’s Little Italy the opportunity to strike it rich quick opens up to Charlie (Harvey Keitel), a young man working his way up the local food chain of organized crime. Charlie remains friends with his local boys, which includes a reckless dude named Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro) that is up to his troubled ass in gambling debts. Then there’s Teresa (Amy Robinson), the pretty girl that Charlie loves but which his family rejects because she’s prone to epileptic seizures. These trio and a bunch of colorful Italian-American folks will talk, exchange blows, trade insults, betray each other’s loyalties and bare their souls for a couple of days (and nights) that will change their lives forever. Just another of a million and one stories in the mean streets of the naked city of New York’s Little Italy, circa 1973.
If 1968’s “Who’s That Knocking At My Door?” hinted that Martin Scorsese was a great movie director in the making then his 1973 urban drama “Mean Streets” firmly cemented the young director’s reputation as a talent worth watching. It also passes the baton from Harvey Keitel (who starred in “WTKAMD?”) to a young Robert DeNiro as the actor that would embody the mold of the typical Scorsese leading man: resolute and outwardly strong but plagued with internal weaknesses that he fails to acknowledge, which leads to his downfall via baptisms of fire.
It’s interesting that in “Mean Streets” DeNiro’s Johnny Boy is the weakling and Keitel’s Charlie is the level-headed one with the affection of a woman tempting his desire to continue in a life of crime. To see these two elite actors at their youthful best (especially considering how DeNiro played a completely different type of mobster the following year in 1974’s “The Godfather Part II”) is reason enough to watch “Mean Streets.”
And yet I’m personally not fond of “Mean Streets” as classic cinematic entertainment. The movie is too talkie and drowns on forever in small locales all over Little Italy, the classic sign of a low-budget movie. The few outbursts of violence and profanity are messy and look awful instead of kinetic (probably on purpose), and very little happens until the movie’s dramatic conclusion. It’s the reliance on the small and colorful little touches that Scorsese captures (and which would have gone unnoticed by a Hollywood director not familiar with the world of small time hoods) that give “Mean Streets” the feel of a documentary instead of a movie.
This flick makes for an interesting triple billing with “Casino” or “Goodfellas” as the training ground in which the filmmaker and his favorite actor were able to connect, thus bringing the best out of each other in the process. I made the mistake of watching “Mean Streets” right after “Goodfellas” and with high expectations; the opposite should be the correct way to experience the movie on DVD. As the first of Scorsese’s many films dealing with the experiences that shaped his first-generation Italian-American views of life “Mean Streets” delivers some goods. The director’s better movies that followed in the years since this low-budget flick was made have dated it badly though.
The Disc:
Unlike every other movie in the “Martin Scorsese Collection” the new DVD for “Mean Streets” doesn’t come with a new documentary. Instead Warner unearths from God knows where a 6:35 min. ’Martin Scorsese Back on the Block’ Featurette shot and shown around the time “Mean Streets” first appeared in theaters. We meet Scorsese’s mother (a fixture in most of his movies), his friends and the locations in which the movie’s characters/situations are loosely based. Not too informative and very short, this featurette is nevertheless interesting considering it was done 30 years ago.
There’s also a Theatrical Trailer and a Commentary Track that skips over silent portions, which shortens the movie’s length by 20 minutes or so. Writer/Director Scorsese and actress Amy Robinson (who went on to produce Scorsese’s 1985 flick “After Hours”) were recorded separately and their comments edited together into a track brimming with personal thoughts and memories of what it was like to make the film on a shoestring budget, work with a then-unknown DeNiro in his first major movie role, etc. Since there’s no new documentary with this “Mean Streets” DVD the commentary does a fine job relaying to listeners how high Scorsese ranks this movie amongst his other work.
The English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Soundtrack makes it a little hard to follow the dialogue during a few scenes; some dubbed lines also stand out from the recorded dialogue. Other than that the soundtrack is OK and, to be safe, you can always read along what’s being said with English, French and Spanish Subtitles. Last but not least, Warner has commissioned a new Widescreen Anamorphic (1:85:1) Video Transfer that is miles better than the shitty-looking transfer from the movie’s first DVD release. Lots of dirt and grain on the original film print actually highlight the grittiness of the urban locales Scorsese is so fond of filming. Flesh tones look quite natural and the truckload of compressed artifacts that marred the previous video transfer are corrected in this double-dip disc. Not quite up to the Special Edition moniker, the new “Mean Streets” DVD is good enough to last fans for a good long while.
bottom line:
Scorsese’s first team-up with DeNiro hints at the greatness that the two would achieve with subsequent projects. Keitel and Robinson’s performances are also quite good and Little Italy can’t be beat for local New York authenticity. Ultimately “Mean Streets” is too boring and talkie, just like every other low-budget movie that served as a springboard for its director to achieve greatness with better movies. Worth a rental for most and a purchase for diehard Scorsese collectors.
By - J.M. Vargas
