Sunday, December 13, 2009

MEAN STREETS (1973)

“You pay for your sins on the street, not in the church.”

A breakthrough film of one of the brilliant director-actor combination- Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, which paved for some of the finest Hollywood films from this combo. The story revolves around the bunch of New York street side young men who wanted to make a way out of their aggressiveness from rough street crime to organized crime. The film coined a new chapter of rough city street life and directionless youngsters of 70’s. It’s bit dragging drama compared to other brilliant and better films by Scorsese but in 70’s, its quite out of the box experience for Hollywood.

The paradox of personality traits between two lead players is something striking in the film. Charlie (played by Harvey Keitel) is cool, internal and calculative risk taker while Johnny Boy (played by De Niro) is highly impulsive, short tempered shows the dichotomy of characteristic traits from both lead actors who’ve given memorable acts. Later Scorsese done role reversal in ‘Goodfellas’ where De’Niro played calculated criminal and Pesci shows more fire with his temperamentally swinging character just like Johnny Boy. The climax is pure Scorsese trademark-bloodshed, shoot out and car crash leaving characters to bleeding death.

Essential for Scorsese-De Niro fans.

Ratings-7.5/10

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