Robert De Niro Film
Fest Movie #16 (Hey, this would have been perfect for my salute to organized crime movies a few years ago…)
Synopsis: Italian-American
boy befriends surprisingly generous and open-minded gangster, who teaches him
that racism is wrong, and um… working for a living is for chumps.
Blurb From the VHS
Jacket: “In his directorial debut, two-time Academy Award-winner Robert De
Niro stars as Lorenzo Anello, a hard-working bus driver who must stand up to
the local mob boss if he is to keep his son from falling into a life of crime.” [Wait - doesn't that sound a bit like South Central, with an Italian cast?]
What Did I Learn?:
1) “Mickey Mantle don't care about you, so why should you care about him?
Nobody cares.” 2) Doo-wop was the sound on the street in 1960. 3) “It was great
to be Catholic and go to confession. You could start over every week.” 4) “Sometimes
in the heat of passion, the little head tells the big head what to do, and the
big head should think twice about what you are doing.” 5) “The saddest thing in
life is wasted talent.” 6) “You're only allowed three great women in your
lifetime.” 7) There’s a good chance that a motorcycle gang named “Satan’s
Messengers” will turn out to be a bunch of pussies in a street fight. 8) Some interesting dating advice.
You Might Like This
Movie If: You've always wanted to see a one-man autobiographical play adapted into a full-length feature film.
Really?: So, what
happened to Calogero’s mom? She more-or-less disappears mid-way through the
movie. Come to think of it, the whole
working-class-joe-saves-his-son-from-life-of-crime plotline (see: “Blurb From the VHS Jacket”) is also
dropped, so the movie can become West
Side Story without all of the singing and dancing.
Rating: A
Bronx Tale was De Niro’s directorial debut, and it’s a pretty good movie,
with strong performance from both leads and a number of great lines. My only complaints would be that the film
has a lot of characters and sub-plots that are introduced and then dropped
(see: “Really?”) without any real
resolution, and I would have liked to have seen a bit more of De Niro’s character
in the second and third acts. 8/10 stars.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106489/?ref_=nv_sr_1
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