Premise: A mob-adjacent guy keeps having to get his small-time gambler buddy out of trouble.
This isn't Martin Scorsese's first movie, but it is the first Scorsese Movie. With most directors, there's an early movie that "hip" film nerds will say is actually their best movie. It doesn't have to be their first movie. Instead, it's the movie right before people started paying attention to them*. For Scorsese, that's Mean Streets. I'll go ahead and tell you that it's not his best movie. If someone tells you that, stop taking recommendations from them. They are fronting and will lead you in many bad directions. However, Means Streets is a good and accomplished effort by Scorsese. A lot of his trademarks like the violence and music drops are all there. It is a bit odd to hear The Rolling Stones and remember that they were a contemporary choice at the time.
*Memento for Nolan. Blood Simple for the Coens. Pi for Aronofsky. I could keep going.
I know Robert De Niro was in The Godfather Part II just a year later, but he seems so young in this. It's probably because the point of the role is that he's an immature screw up. Maybe I need to really blow my mind and see him in something like Sam's Song from 1969. De Niro in his mid-20s? I don't think I could...
I think this movie suffers from hindsight a lot. It's not like Scorsese made this then abandoned this kind of movie once he got more money. He's made a version of this movie a dozen times since. The raw material is there. This is informative about what he developed into later, but this really is a movie that he grew upon. This is sort of a proof of concept movie for him and by Taxi Driver (I still haven't seen Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore) he's figured out what he wants to say.
Verdict: Weekly Recommend
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