Product: Mean Streets (1973)
Rating: 1.0
What's The Big Deal?
P.T. Barnum once mused "no one ever went broke underestiating the intelligence of the Amercan people." Martin Scorcese made a fortune with this movie. I was 11 years old when "Mean Streets" hit the movie theatres, and I have been in love with the oldies since I was 17 years old and started listening to WCBS-FM. Those are the two, and only two, things that Means Streets has going for it. The soundtrack features such superb classics as "Please Mr. Postman," by the Marvelettes, "Ship Of Love," by the Nutmegs, and "Mickey's Monkey," by Smokey Robinson. I love the cars, too, especially the midnight blue 1970 Chrysler New Yorker Harvey Keitel eventually crashed. I don't see anything else the movie has going for it. Other than Robert DeNiro owing Richard Romanus money with Harvey Keitel running interference, and Keitel being in love with DeNiro's epileptic cousin, it is impossible to figure out what's happening. In one scene, "Chollie" says to "Tony," the club owner, "you got a habit of saying one thing then sliding right into something else like no one's supposed to notice." That's Mean Streets. I don't understand why it's called "Mean Streets," because it's not about a runaway or prostitute; it's supposed to be about the comings and goings of a bunch of young wiseguys. The plot slides from Keitel's Catholic guilt to DeNiro's debts to shylocks to an attempt at collecting money owed, on and on and on ad forever. Unlike the movie "A Hard Day's Night," having no plot did not work. And last but not least, please explain to me why three people have to ride together in the front seatof that land yacht of a Chrysler New Yorker?