Product: Mean Streets (1973)
Rating: 5.0
Young but growing
A film that is very problematic. It is not that old but the action is set in quite an older period, yet Robert de Niro looks like a young actor just out of drama school trying to imitate his mentor Robert de Niro himself, an older version of himself in a way. The film has little depth actually. We all know you must not play with the law of the street that the bad boys of the underworld are imposing onto those who are dumb enough not to be blind and what's more who want to have their share of the cake they have not contributed to kneading, baking and glazing. The real point is that a few thousand dollars become a monumental debt when the borrower becomes dumb enough to pretend in the lender's face and in front of quite a few witnesses he will never pay back because the lender is a dumb idiot. The end is signed in that declaration. Death. And death again and again on two innocent acolytes. The film has essentially one interest: the young de Niro and how he is already building his artistic texture, a texture he will never lose nor change. I guess good whisky gets better by aging, provided of course it ages in the proper vessel, vat or barrel.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines