Way better than Goodfellas,Godfather etc.This movie has amazing themes about religion, guilt, attaining penance etc, the story is so realistic and the performances and direction are among the best of all time.The character of Johnny boy is so unique(should have won De Niro the Oscar),I can go on and on about the film and would run out of words. Its in my top5 films of all time and terribly underrated,Anyone else agree.
shareI fully agree about its greatness, but I'm not so sure if this film can be classified as a "gangster film". It's amazing, I could also go on and on... but as I said, "gangster film" doesn't seem to be the appropriate term for it. Sure it has the mafia in the story - sort of - but the main characters themselves are far from mafia fellas. It's really the story of an honorable man, not gangsters. But nevertheless, this film is a masterpiece to my eyes.
I'm da boss, I'm da boss, I'm da boss, I'm da boss, I'm da boss...
Yeah I can agree with you on the main characters not being mafias but they sure are what we can say petty gangsters who are honorable men aspiring to become mafias in the future.
shareAmazing movie, I liked it better than The Godafather. Glad to see I'm not the only one thinking like that.
shareGlad you agree this is so much better than Goodfellas, I actually have a thread on here about that, and classic Hollywood sheep love the choppy shoot-em-up comedy Goodfellas, but cannot relate to the adult dramatic themes of Mean Streets.
shareAgreed
shareI would say it is the most realistic gangster film ever,this is exactly how "gangstas" were at that time. In every city in the world there is one Johnny Boy.
This is made out of real life.
pcddpi, I most certainly agree with ya! To the folks who say that these cats weren't really gangsters, they may have watched too many freakin movies, which formed their opinions, as opposed to hanging out in NJ/NYC dives with ex-cons and wiseguy types. For every freakin Scarface guy, there were tons of desperate, broke paisanos like those in Mean Streets.
Cheers...
Buzz Cartier
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I can assure you that these boys weren't gangsters. Hood - yes, but not gangsters.
shareMean Streets is my favorite film of all time. It features the best ensemble acting I've ever seen: Keitel, Proval, Romanus, De Niro. Outstanding in every way. It's Scorsese's most personal film, superbly directed.
shareYou're funny.
http://uncriticallyacclaimed.blogspot.com/
While I still don't think of Mean Streets as a "gangster/mob" film, I certainly wouldn't deny the influence it must have had on the genre.
Feel a bit like Beethoven...
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These guys aren’t gangsters yet. They aspire to be but they’re kids who’re still too inept to be inducted to the ranks of serious criminals. They steal the wrong things, get conned by the people they attempt to con and lend money to idiots who can’t be trusted.
What you get in Mean Streets is the humdrum day-to-day lives of Little Italy wannabes. Their girlfriends aren’t dressed in ermine and jewels. They fuss over trivialities. A guy breaks out a pistol in their rundown dive bar hangout and everybody scrambles for cover. Not like the other films where you have cold-blooded killers using everything from baseball bats to automatic rifles facing off against other cold-blooded killers. Where a man and his wife are left slaughtered in their custom built cadillac and full-length white mink coat. These guys can’t be trusted to handle such matters. They’re bumbling punks. By comparison to a Henry Hill or a Tommy DiVito, their lives are not so adventurous.
Mean Streets sort of represents the first stage of a Scorsese gangster trilogy. Some of these guys will become the characters in Goodfellas. Some of those will become the characters seen in Casino. You can see there’s a huge difference between the characters in each of those films — Bigger crimes, bigger money, bigger houses, bigger bosses, controlled but infinitely more dangerous. The latter films are denizened by men who’ve done long stretches in prison. They buy and influence judges and politicians. The boys in Mean Streets still maintain semi-friendly name basis relationships with local cops who work the streets where they live. Cops who use the threat of petty charges to shake them down for pocket money.
The only criminals lower than the boys in Mean Streets are the kids who come to them to purchase illegal fireworks.
Though one person’s assertion that there are a thousand scruffy low-lives for every made man is true, most of those merely pay lip service in pretending to be members of the Mafia. Usually mouthing off to people who they figure don’t know better. But the Mafia didn’t get to be as powerful as it has by stuffing itself full of boastful half-wits who’re easily frightened when a gun is fired. A lot of guys who’d like to be in it will never be in it because they just don’t have what it takes to be in it. So, they 'say' they are. So long as their loose talk doesn’t cause any problems for the real guys they’re left alone.
Although Charlie is being groomed by his uncle, and Michael, a small-time loan shark, has a tag-along gunsel, the boys of Mean Streets aren’t full on dye-in-the-wool gangsters yet. Criminals, yes. Dangerous, yes, but not yet mob men.
"Your thinking is untidy, like most so-called thinking today." (Murder, My Sweet)