Mean Streets (1973)

Introduction

Before Taxi Driver, before Raging Bull, and long before Goodfellas, there was Mean Streets — Martin Scorsese’s first major feature, and the film that established his singular voice in American cinema. Raw, restless, and electrified by its street-level perspective, Mean Streets is more than a gangster movie — it’s a deeply personal exploration of Catholic guilt, masculine identity, and moral contradiction.

Emerging from the gritty, post-industrial neighbourhoods of Little Italy in New York, Scorsese fuses autobiography, religious symbolism, and documentary-style realism with the kinetic energy of the French New Wave. The result is a film that feels alive with danger, sweat, blood, and rock 'n' roll.

Plot Summary

Set in the Italian-American enclaves of downtown Manhattan, Mean Streets follows Charlie Cappa (Harvey Keitel), a young man caught between the opposing poles of ambition and guilt. He works for his uncle Giovanni, a mid-level mob boss who’s grooming Charlie for bigger things. But Charlie's moral compass is constantly rattled by his own internal conflicts — especially his complicated relationship with his volatile best friend, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), a self-destructive, small-time hustler who owes money all over town and refuses to show respect to anyone, especially the wrong people.

Charlie also carries on a secret affair with Teresa (Amy Robinson), Johnny Boy’s epileptic cousin — another relationship that puts him at odds with his religious conscience and the community's expectations.

As Johnny Boy’s antics grow more reckless and debts pile up, Charlie finds himself dragged deeper into a moral and physical danger he cannot control — culminating in a climactic, violent confrontation that seals the fate of everyone involved.

Performances

Harvey Keitel anchors the film with quiet intensity. His Charlie is a man tormented not by what he’s done, but by what he wants to be — a good person in a corrupt world. Keitel gives Charlie a brooding dignity, internalizing a moral crisis that plays out in his eyes, his hesitations, and his whispered prayers. His guilt is the film’s heartbeat.

But it’s Robert De Niro, in a breakout performance, who steals the film as Johnny Boy. De Niro makes Johnny a powder keg of charisma and chaos — a grinning, childish, unpredictable force of destruction. Whether taunting a loan shark with firecrackers or spiralling through drunken rants, De Niro’s Johnny Boy is magnetic and terrifying — and a prototype for many of his future characters. The performance is a masterclass in controlled recklessness.

Supporting roles, especially David Proval as Tony (a local bar owner and friend), lend further authenticity, while Amy Robinson’s Teresa adds a quiet counterpoint to the testosterone-saturated world.

Direction and Style

With Mean Streets, Scorsese didn’t just announce himself as a director — he exploded onto the scene with a bold, unmistakable visual and narrative style. He films the city with documentary realism but infuses it with almost religious intensity. The camera moves like a participant, jittery and urgent, often handheld or gliding unpredictably, capturing the heat and heartbeat of urban life.

The film is drenched in symbolism — religious iconography, fire and water, light and darkness — reflecting Charlie’s internal spiritual battle. Scorsese’s Catholicism is omnipresent: Charlie literally holds his hand in candle flames to test his endurance for hell; he quotes scripture and talks to God in voiceover.

The film also pioneered Scorsese’s signature use of popular music to underscore mood and character. The Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” blares as Johnny Boy enters a bar in slow motion — an iconic scene that encapsulates the collision of character and style. Other cuts by The Ronettes, The Marvelettes, and The Chips help turn Mean Streets into a kind of rock-n-roll opera of urban despair.

Themes

Moral Ambiguity and Catholic Guilt

Charlie’s spiritual crisis is the film’s central drama. He’s caught between the church and the streets, between love and loyalty, between salvation and sin. Unlike the clean moral lines of classic gangster films, Mean Streets lives in the grey zone — a world where even “good guys” commit violence, and saints walk among sinners.

Scorsese said, “You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets.” That idea is the film’s thesis — that grace is earned through suffering, not ritual.

Masculinity and Brotherhood

The film dissects the codes of male friendship and loyalty. Charlie’s relationship with Johnny Boy is like that of a co-dependent addict — he loves and protects him, but Johnny drags Charlie down with him. Their brotherhood is both beautiful and toxic, and the inability to abandon one another becomes their undoing.

Urban Alienation and Identity

The characters are not top-tier mobsters — they’re petty criminals, dreamers, and screw-ups. Mean Streets is about small men in a small world, chasing small dreams. It’s intensely local, steeped in the neighbourhood’s cultural codes and suffocating moral hierarchies. Charlie's real struggle isn’t with crime, but with who he is — and who he’s allowed to be.

Legacy and Influence

When Mean Streets premiered, it marked the true beginning of New Hollywood’s second wave — raw, independent, character-focused films born from personal experience rather than studio formulas. It didn’t just launch Scorsese’s career; it also cemented Keitel and De Niro as major forces in American cinema.

Filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Lee, and David O. Russell have cited Mean Streets as formative. Its unpolished style, conversational dialogue, and blend of music and image set the blueprint for a generation of auteurs. Without Mean Streets, there might be no Pulp Fiction, no Boogie Nights, no Trainspotting.

Scorsese would go on to refine and expand the ideas in this film with Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and The Irishman, but Mean Streets remains his most visceral, most personal, and arguably most spiritual work.

Notable Scenes

Johnny Boy’s slow-motion entrance to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” — a swaggering, iconic image of recklessness and cool.

Charlie’s candle test — a literal metaphor for sin, penance, and eternal damnation, filled with existential dread.

The pool hall fight — chaotic, funny, and gritty, with a handheld camera that throws the viewer into the melee.

Final car ride — a sudden, shocking eruption of violence that punctuates the fatalism simmering throughout.

Final Thoughts

Mean Streets is not a traditional gangster movie — it’s more confessional than plot-driven, more spiritual than sensational. It’s a portrait of lost boys pretending to be men, of guilt that never sleeps, and of streets that chew up souls while disco songs echo in the background.

The film’s roughness is part of its brilliance — it feels like it was made with blood, sweat, and Catholic shame. It’s a work of raw genius, a film that changed American cinema by showing what could happen when directors told their stories with their style — unfiltered, uncompromised, and unforgettable.

Verdict

A foundational film in American cinema — messy, vibrant, and hauntingly personal. It’s Scorsese’s origin story, De Niro’s arrival, and a timeless ode to sin, loyalty, and the cost of survival.