AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

MartinHafer "Mean Streets" is a tough film for me to review because I am not particularly a fan of modern gangster movies. I tend to find them overly violent, overly bloody and overly nasty. That being said, I do think "Mean Streets" is a well made film...though not exactly a pleasant one or one I'd recommend folks rush out to rent.Despite Robert De Niro being listed in the lead, Karvey Keitel is the leading man in this story. Keitel plays Charlie....a gangster who is a relatively low level thug. Even lower is his friend, Johnny (De Niro). They are a very odd pair, as Charlie seems more thoughtful and folks like him. As for Johnny, he's a walking liability--as he's unpredictable, easy to hate and a mook. And, the viewer has the strong feeling that eventually SOMETHING bad has to happen....as Johnny can't keep burning all of his friends. What that is, frankly, was interesting but the finale also wasn't exactly satisfying because so many things are left unresolved.Overall, this is a film I recommend you see only if you are a huge Martin Scorsese fan. Otherwise, think twice before you see it because the film is pretty nasty for 1973--with ample cursing, violence, blood and boobs.

mathildesalberte As a big fan of Martin Scorsese's work, I was rather disappointed by this film. It starts off nicely with some intriguing scenes, but nothing really happens and no developments happen throughout the whole picture. The acting is alright and so is the editing and sound mixing, but the plot is tedious and almost non-existent. As a debut film it is alright, however I would never go as far as to call it somewhat of a classic and if someone asked me to watch it again, I would be happy to take a pass.

xtian_durden Young into his career – only his third film – Scorsese was already in control of his maturing talent, his signature style was now on full display, delivering an absorbing portrait of Italian-American life of crime and redemption in the streets of New York (although most of the film was actually shot in Los Angeles).This force of nature of a film is powered by the outstanding cast, namely Keitel who plays a character which seems like an extension of the boy he played six years earlier in "Who's That Knocking at My Door", and De Niro in his unforgettable first role in a Scorsese film, playing Keitel's self-destructive mook of a cousin, Johnny Boy.Scorsese owed a lot of his gritty filmmaking style to directors such as John Cassavetes, but there are no films like "Mean Streets" before – it became the blueprint for modern movies. In 1967, he used contemporary music as a film soundtrack as opposed to a traditional score, an unheard of practice at that time and even before "Easy Rider" popularized that notion, it had since become a staple for many modern movies, here he used it again more effectively."Mean Streets" is rough around the edges, with bloody violence soaked in pop music – the antithesis of Coppola's glamorous gangster epic – and an early masterpiece from a director who will go on to make more.

SlyGuy21 Never thought I'd find a Scorsese movie boring, but this is beyond boring. I was struggling to stay interested after 30 minutes. There's no real plot, not character development, some scenes just exist and serve no purpose. I'm willing to give Scorsese some slack here, because this was before "Taxi Driver" when his career really took off, but it's not a lot of slack, because the movie's still boring as hell. Thankfully, the movie's so forgettable, that in a couple of days I'll have forgotten about 95% of it, and it was a pretty quick sit for me losing interest so early. It's a good thing Scorsese's career was able to kick off a couple of years later, because this was not a good start if you ask me.