"It's all bullshit except the pain. The pain of hell. The burn from a lighted match increased a million times. Infinite. Now, ya don't fuck around with the infinite. There's no way you do that. The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart... your soul, the spiritual side. And ya know... the worst of the two is the spiritual."
— Charlie Cappa
Mean Streets is a 1973 film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Harvey Keitel as Charlie, a morally and spiritually conflicted young mobster, and Robert De Niro as Johnny Boy, his immature and irresponsible best friend. Charlie has his hands full keeping the reckless Johnny Boy on the straight and narrow. At the same time, Charlie is having an affair with Johnny's cousin, Teresa, but keeping it secret because Teresa is an epileptic and the community shuns her for this.
The film was Scorsese's Breakthrough Hit, establishing him as a major talent, and proved to be De Niro's Star-Making Role. It was seen as the counterpart to The Godfather as it took a gritty, down-to-earth approach to the Italian American mob, showing them without the Affably Evil stylizations of Coppola's film. Much of what came to be Scorsese's Signature Style is visible in this film, including stylized camera movements, sudden violence, troubling religious iconography and use of popular music as scores.
It was also the first of Scorsese's films to deal with the mob, a subject he returned to with GoodFellas and Casino, later noting that all three films represent an informal trilogy of the Italian American mob from low-level hoodlums to power brokers.
This movie contains examples of:
- Anti-Hero: Charlie is the protagonist and ostensibly the character we're rooting for, but he's a small-time criminal who looks down on his girlfriend and is only helping Johnny Boy in the first place to make himself feel better about the bad things he's continuing to do.
- Author Avatar: Charlie is at least partly one for Martin Scorsese. His last name is even Scorsese's mother's maiden name (Cappa) and he shares his first name with Scorsese's father.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
- A one-sided version. Johnny speaks of his cousin Teresa in a derisive manner, while she calls him a crazy person and says Charlie is foolish to keep hanging out with him, yet she does summon Charlie for help when she worries Johnny is suicidal. Unfortunately, he remains completely unloving toward her.
- Charlie and Johnny both have ulterior motives for their friendship, and they spend a lot of the film at odds with each other, but they do have occasional moments where it's clear they genuinely enjoy each other's company. These include their mock-fight with the trash can lids, the two of them joking around about Charlie tucking Johnny in while Johnny is crashing at Charlie's place, and Johnny reminiscing about how they used to play hide-and-seek as kids. After Charlie becomes angry and slaps Johnny following Teresa's seizure, he calms down once he sees that Johnny is on the verge of tears, and asks if he's hurt.
- Bad Guy Bar: The bar where the main characters spend their time. Aside from the protagonists themselves, it's also the scene of a shooting between two other gangsters.
- Bait-and-Switch: The ending momentarily implies that Johnny and Teresa are dying by showing a closeup of Teresa's bloody and feebly twitching hand and head, and Johnny staggering toward a white light while clutching his neck wound. Then it turns out Johnny is only walking toward headlights, and once paramedics help Teresa out of the car, she isn't bleeding too badly and can stand with a little help.
- Bar Brawl: One breaks out when Charlie goes to collect a payment from a pool hall owner, the pool hall owner is reluctant to pay, and a brawl breaks out.
- Bar Slide: Charlie attempts to slide a shot of liquor into another character's mouth by hitting it with a pool cue.
- Berserk Button: While Charlie is in bed with Teresa early in the movie, he calls her a cunt. She does not take it well.
- The Big Rotten Apple: New York looks rotten, filthy, awful. About thirty seconds in there's a shot of a guy shooting up in a bar bathroom.
- Binge Montage: The scene where there's a Face Cam in front of a very tipsy Charlie at a party is a textbook example.
- Blowing Smoke Rings: At the party for the returning soldier, Michael sits and calmly blows smoke rings while the others get louder and drunker, showing how he's somewhat removed from their circle.
- Bullying a Dragon: After Charlie has gone out of his way to rectify Johnny Boy's debt situation with a neighborhood mobster, Johnny Boy not only refuses to pay but also insults the mobster to his face and threatens him with a gun. Not a wise move.
- Camp Gay: One of the people Michael picks up in his car, along with Charlie and Johnny Boy, after they flee the shoot-out in the bar, starts acting this way during the drive. His friend tries to explain it's because he's nervous, but Charlie and Johnny Boy are in no mood and force Michael to pull over and let them out.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: Invoked by Johnny Boy when he turns in his pants at a coat check instead of his jacket.
- Commitment Issues: Teresa tells Charlie that she loves him and wants to move in with him. Charlie outright tells her that he doesn't love her and doesn't want to get involved with her (beyond what they're already doing), and he is clearly not interested in the idea of living together.
- Creator Cameo: Martin Scorsese plays hood Jimmy Shorts, the one who takes the shots at Johnny Boy at the end. He's also the voice of the priest when Charlie goes to pray in church at the start.
- Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Played With. The guys certainly think they have a good life, but as the film goes on we see they're not in a great position. The older Mafia leaders (like Charlie's uncle Giovanni) hold all the power and use the gangsters like pawns. They really don't have much of a life outside of hanging out in bars and restaurants and getting drunk, and for all the fun they have they also have their associates (like Michael) who see organized crime as Serious Business, with dangerous consequences.
- Deadpan Snarker: Johnny Boy becomes fed up with Charlie toward the end of the movie and sarcastically mocks him.Charlie: Where were you? Answer me, you son of a bitch, where were you?
Teresa: Charlie...
Charlie: [pushing Teresa away] Shut up!
Johnny Boy: Yeah, shut up, Teresa, come on. We don't wanna get Charlie in trouble here, do we?
Charlie: Don't be cute. You had me going crazy here! What's the matter with you?
Johnny Boy: Ahh... What's the matter with you...
Charlie: You're about an hour and a half late, you know that?
Johnny Boy: Oh, that's too bad.
Charlie: Michael's waiting for us. You forget or what? Your cousin was getting sick worryin' about you. We'd have started calling up everybody!
Johnny Boy: Yeah? That's too bad. [to Teresa] Isn't that too bad? Huh, Teresa? So, kiddies, youse make any plans yet or what? When are youse getting married? Gonna get engaged?
Charlie: Don't be smart, John.
Johnny Boy: Me? What do you mean? I ain't smart, I'm stupid, remember? I'm a stronzo. I'm so stupid, you gotta look out for me, right? Right?
[Teresa sighs heavily]
Johnny Boy: What's the matter? Hey, Teresa... Look at that, she's upset, now what are you so upset about? You don't understand Charlie. Charlie likes everybody, everybody likes Charlie. Fuckin' politician over here. - Dirty Cop: After breaking up a Bar Brawl in a pool hall, a cop searches Charlie and finds a knife, and is about to charge him before the pool hall owner, Joey, bribes him into dropping the charge with "car fare" to Philadelphia. Joey states that he has bribed them several times before, as "every day is like Christmas" to them.
- The Dog Bites Back: Pushed to the limits of his patience throughout the film, Michael eventually acts on his threats after Johnny not only refuses to cough up the money but threatens Michael with a gun.
- Door-Closes Ending: Sort of. The very last shot shows some of the windows of the apartment building. The old lady (played by Martin Scorsese's mother) in the far right window lowers her blinds. Smash to Black.
- Double-Meaning Title: "Mean Streets" is a reference to a Raymond Chandler essay
, wherein it refers to a realistically gritty setting for a detective novel to take place. In the case of the movie, it can also refer to the neighbourhood, to the public sphere in general (as the opening monologue states "you don't make up for your crimes in church, you do it in the streets", meaning out in the world), and to the literal street where Johnny is shot in a drive-by. - Empty Fridge, Empty Life: Johnny Boy can't find any food in Charlie's fridge. Both Charlie and Johnny are petty criminals whose selfishness gets in the way of their relationships with other people.
- Enter Stage Window: Johnny Boy does this to get into Charlie’s apartment, finds Teresa and Charlie embracing, and finds out about their affair.
- Erotic Dream: Charlie describes a dream he has about Teresa in which he
ejaculates blood. - Establishing Character Moment: In the opening scenes, Charlie is shown leaving confession in a church, while Johnny Boy is shown blowing up a mailbox For the Evulz.
- Expy: I Vitelloni is used more as a point of reference than a blueprint for Mean Streets, but you can make a case for Moraldo/Charlie and Fausto/Johnny Boy.
- Evil Is Burning Hot: Charlie notes that going to Hell would mean "the burn from a lighted match increased a million times", and he compulsively holds his hand over any flame he sees.
- Extreme Doormat: Both Charlie and Michael are unusually patient and lenient by mobster standards, but it works against them. Charlie is too attached to Johnny and goes out of his way to help his situation despite the fact that Johnny does nothing to help himself, putting himself in danger by merely associating with a loser like Johnny. Michael is lenient enough to lower Johnny's debt by a full $1000 but he can't intimidate Johnny enough to get him to pay even that.
- Facecam: Used during Charlie's aforementioned Binge Montage. Arguably the Trope Maker for "Facecam = intoxicated."
- Family Business: For both meanings of family. Charlie is hoping his uncle Giovanni will give him a restaurant to run.
- Fanservice: Even with pasties on, the topless dancers at the bar merit a lot of the camera’s attention. Later on, the bedroom scenes with Teresa show full frontal nudity (though not from Harvey Keitel).
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Johnny Boy=Sanguine (Teresa also counts), Charlie=Phlegmatic, Tony=Choleric, Michael=Melancholic.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Johnny Boy seems to be this. Charlie is the only one he has a close bond with, everyone else regards him as a loose cannon, and it's implied that Charlie's supervision of him is what's keeping Johnny Boy in their circle.
- Fright-Induced Bunkmate: After witnessing a shooting at their favourite bar, Johnny spends the night at Charlie's, and they opt to share Charlie's mother's bed rather than sleeping separately.
- Gangland Drive-By: Michael and Jimmy Shorts spray the car that Johnny is in full of lead at the end of the movie, after Johnny Boy goes way, way, way too far with antagonizing Michael. Apparently Charlie, Johnny Boy, and Teresa all survive, although it's not completely clear.
- Goofy Print Underwear: When Johnny Boy pretends to check his pants at the coat check, Tony jokingly asks if he's wearing shorts with hearts on them.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Pretty much each of the main male characters - Charlie, Johnny Boy and Michael all have short fuses.
- Hidden Depths: Tony the Mook is apparently familiar with William Blake poetry, as evidenced by a throwaway comment about how he wanted to buy a tiger after hearing his poems.
- Hypocrisy Callout: After Charlie reprimands Johnny Boy for not showing up to work, Johnny points out that Charlie doesn't have a job.Charlie: What gets me is your attitude.Johnny Boy: My attitude? What gets me is your attitude. Did you ever load crates? You don't work. What do you do? You tell me to go to work and then you do all the talkin'. What do you do? You do nothing.
- Inner Monologue: We hear Charlie talking to God in his head a couple times. By the end of the movie, he starts doing it out loud, to the amusement of Johnny Boy and Teresa.Charlie: I guess you could safely say that things haven't gone so well tonight but I'm tryin', Lord, I'm tryin'.Johnny Boy: What, are you talking to yourself?
- Instant Death Bullet: Averted; a drunk at Tony's bar gets shot numerous times, and takes a long time to die.
- Invisible Parents: Teresa's parents (whose home she wants to move out of) and Charlie's mother (who is off visiting his sick grandmother and leaves a shirt with a note for him in one scene) are repeatedly mentioned but never seen.
- ISO-Standard Urban Groceries: Does Teresa have a long French bread roll sticking out of the grocery bag she carries home? Is there a quart of milk in there? Yes and yes.
- It's All About Me: Charlie helps Johnny so he can feel better about himself morally, and he hides his relationship with Teresa because he knows his uncle Giovanni would disapprove and Charlie wants Giovanni to give him a job. Meanwhile, Johnny Boy wants Charlie to ask Giovanni for money (despite knowing that Giovanni would not be happy about the situation) so Johnny doesn't have to face the consequences of not paying back his debt.
- I Will Show You X!:
- (As Charlie is driving recklessly)
Teresa: Slow down!Charlie: Teresa, I wish you'd slow down your mouth a little, how 'bout that?- (As Charlie is reprimanding Johnny for missing work)
Johnny Boy: Charlie, c'mon! My arm was hurtin'...Charlie: Your hand was hurtin'... Your mouth's gonna hurt from this kick. - Kick the Dog: Johnny Boy coldly abandoning Charlie and Teresa while she has an epileptic seizure due to their fight not caring if she'll make it. And just before that mocking her and Charlie's relationship by asking if she has seizures when she climaxes. Doubly cruel since Teresa is also Johnny’s cousin.
- Literary Allusion Title: From Raymond Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder."
- Lower-Class Lout: Johnny Boy is rude and immature, and relies on loans for money.
- Made of Iron: The drunk played by David Carradine, who gets shot three times, turns and grabs his assailant and drags him out of the bathroom, gets shot a fourth time, grabs his assailant again, and appears to be winning the fight by the time they roll out into the street and he collapses. The gang marvels at this, and comparisons to Rasputin are made.
- Manchild:
- Johnny Boy. Although, given his penchant for blowing up mailboxes, starting bar brawls, and sticking (unloaded) guns in the faces of mobsters he owes money to, it can be argued he's closer to a Psychopathic Man Child. In either case, he still has the emotional, intellectual, and mental maturity of a young—and rather dim—adolescent.
- Charlie lives with his mother, has no interest in getting a job unless it's being handed a restaurant to run by his uncle, keeps his fling with Teresa a secret because he's worried his family will disapprove, and believes that he can make up for his bad deeds by doing something nice every once in a while (without actually changing his harmful behaviour). He also shows moments of childish behaviour such as when he and Johnny pretend to fight with trash can lids, or when he peeks through his fingers at Teresa after she has told him not to.
- The Millstone: Johnny. When they finally get to collect a debt after a pool hall brawl, Johnny re-ignites the brawl gratuitously. On another occasion, even when Charlie's trying to help him, Johnny spends the money Charlie loaned him to pay Michael just out of spite. He then insults Michael, threatens him, behaves like an idiot. In the end Charlie is probably going to get into trouble for disobeying his uncle and helping Johnny.
- Mission from God: Somewhat disillusioned by the Catholic Church, Charlie seeks his own redemption for his sins by looking after Johnny Boy.Charlie (internal monologue as he watches Johnny Boy from across the room): Alright, okay. Thanks a lot, Lord. Thanks a lot for opening my eyes. You talk about penance and you send this through the door. Well, we play by your rules, don't we? Well, don't we?
- Money to Burn: Johnny Boy elects to light the last of his money on fire rather than use it to pay Michael back.
- Mooks: One of the earliest known uses of the term thereby making the film a Trope Namer. However, the term's meaning in the movie is completely different from the trope's meaning; the trope refers to lower-level minions of a villain, but in the movie, it's used by a pool hall owner to refer to a contemptible person.
- Naked on Arrival: Teresa's first appearance is as Charlie watches her change through the window, immediately followed by a scene of the two of them in bed together in which she is fully naked.
- Never Lend to a Friend: The main conflict of the film arises from Johnny Boy owing Michael money that he refuses to pay back, and Charlie, who is friends with both of them, attempting to mitigate the situation. This puts a strain on Charlie's friendships with both Michael and Johnny Boy, eventually leading to him hitting Johnny out of frustration.
- No Ending: Michael, having been pushed way too far by Johnny Boy, stages a drive-by assault as Charlie is driving Johnny to Brooklyn with Teresa tagging along. After Jimmy Shorts pumps bullets into their car, Charlie crashes. Johnny is shot in the neck but apparently not fatally, as he stumbles away from the car. Charlie exits the car, shot in the hand. Teresa is also able to walk away, helped out by the EMTs after suffering a cut on the scalp. There's a quick montage of other characters from the film. Then the film ends.
- Non-Appearing Title: The phrase "mean streets" is never spoken in the film, although the characters do say the film's working title (Season of the Witch) a couple times.
- "No Peeking!" Request: Teresa tells Charlie not to watch her get dressed after they have sex.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Michael's contribution to the poolroom brawl is mostly unsuccessfully trying to run away from two guys and throw things in their way, and he is a surprisingly tolerant loan shark who agrees to take less money from a friend rather than pursue the issue, making him seem more like a member of the ensemble of friends who just has slightly different interests than the others. But he is still a mob loanshark, and anyone who forgets that is obliged to remember the drive-by shooting.
- Politically Incorrect Villain:
- Mob boss Giovanni is awful to Teresa because she has epilepsy, advising his nephew Charlie to stay away from her.
- Loan shark Michael and his friend Tony refer to a bunch of Chinese-Americans as chinks, use the n-word in one scene, and Michael looks ill at the thought of having kissed a woman who also kissed a black man once. Tony also says that if a girl is promiscuous, it must mean she's Jewish.
- Johnny Boy hates having to share a car with two gay men and mocks his cousin's epilesy.
- Rambunctious Italian: Johnny Boy is a frenetic and loudmouthed Italian-American.
- Red Is Violent: The bar where the main characters hang out is bathed in red light, and is the scene of a shooting and the confrontation between Johnny Boy and Michael.
- Secret Relationship: Charlie and Teresa are sleeping together, but keep this information secret, in part because Teresa is looked down upon by Charlie's family due to her epilepsy. The script reveals that their relationship is kept secret because Charlie's family and Teresa's family see each other as relatives (despite presumably not actually being related).
- Shout-Out: There are many movie references even this early in Scorsese's oeuvre:
- After Michael and Tony scam a couple of guys out of $20 for fireworks, they and Charlie go and see The Searchers.
- The film Charlie, Johnny Boy and Teresa go to is Ligeia by Roger Corman (producer and Scorsese's old boss). The film is Scorsese's personal favorite of Corman's Poe films. One of the posters at the theater is for Husbands, directed by John Cassavetes, whose work was obviously an influence on this film, but also a tip-of-the-hat because Cassavetes personally encouraged Scorsese to put more of his life experiences into his films, which led to the creation of Mean Streets.
- The finale, the montage of Johnny Boy's friends and associates in their own life, intercut with Johnny and Charlie in the aftermath of the attack is structured like the end of I Vitelloni only with the opposite ending, the hero leaves the town in Federico Fellini's film but Scorsese's hero fails.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Johnny Boy.
- Slice of Life: There isn't much of a plot, although Charlie's efforts to keep Johnny Boy from fucking up form a theme of sorts. It's basically a study of the lives of some gangsters over a few days. Very much like the film's inspiration, I Vitelloni.
- Too Dumb to Live: Johnny Boy (especially after he insults and threatens a mobster he's heavily indebted to).
- Toxic Friend Influence: Johnny Boy is so much of this to Charlie that even Charlie's Mob superior—his uncle—warns him to stay away.
- 20 Minutes into the Past: Set in the latter part of The '60s, with September 1968 likely being the specific time frame (since that's the month the San Gennaro festival takes place and it's also around the time "Jumpin' Jack Flash" was peaking on the charts).
- Ungrateful Bastard: Johnny Boy. Charlie manages to get his debt reduced by a thousand dollars and negotiates with Michael to lay off him until they can all negotiate a settlement, but not only does he do everything he can to not pay Michael back, by the time they meet face-to-face, he gives him a meager ten dollars (after spending most of his cash on drinks), then threatens Michael with a gun. All of this earns him a bullet to the neck, his survival unclear.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: "You don't have the guts" — followed by the target fleeing the premises sharpish, only to set up a drive-by in revenge.
- Weapon for Intimidation: Johnny Boy pulls a gun on Michael, but it's not loaded.
- With Friends Like These...: It's really hard to see why Charlie remains friends with Johnny Boy, not even causing Teresa to have a seizure makes Charlie turn on him or Johnny throwing all his hard effort to make things right with Michael into his face.