Based in part on his own experiences in the darker corners of New York’s Little Italy, Scorsese provides a parable of a man attempting to reconcile his violent lifestyle with an irresolute Catholic faith. Harvey Keitel portrays Charlie, a well-meaning, small-time hood whose conflicted nature is slowly beginning to jeopardize his work and private life. Robert De Niro turns in a startling performance as Johnny Boy, Charlie’s arguably psychopathic friend, whose quick temper and unpaid debts quickly become menacing liabilities.
Appears in: Drive-In at Zidell Yards, Reel Music Festival 31
Genres: Crime, Drama
Other Films by Martin Scorsese
The King of Comedy
Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) is a delusional schmuck living with his mother and a life-size cardboard cutout of Liza Minnelli, practicing to become a famous stand-up comedian. He leaves his basement set to stalk Johnny Carson-like talk show host Jerry Langford (icily played by Jerry Lewis), in the hopes of securing a spot on …
Raging Bull
“The apotheosis of De Niro’s — indeed, of anyone’s — practice of Method Acting comes in Martin Scorsese’s harrowing biopic about the boxer Jake LaMotta. De Niro sculpted his body to a middleweight fighter’s level of fitness, then ballooned up by adding 60 pounds to his frame so as to depict the washed-up LaMotta. Even …
Goodfellas
Scorsese’s masterpiece of late-American Dream excess and the decaying effects of a ceaseless lust for money follows Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), a young man who idolizes the mobsters he sees in his neighborhood every day, as he works his way up the Brooklyn mafia hierarchy over a thirty-year period. Perched above him in the pecking …