5 Awesome Performances...
5. Johnny Boy - Mean Streets
Mean Streets unleashed Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel to audiences, and none of them have looked back since. The film is impossibly electric and shows the lure of crime through a groovy soundtrack that features The Rolling Stones at their finest and an array of sharp suits. Depicting criminals at the bottom end of the ladder, Mean Streets has a sweaty desperate atmosphere that is a constant cause for unease - no doubt thanks to De Niro's Johnny Boy, an unpredictable wannabe Mafia star. It's clear De Niro has charisma and a magnetic ability from the second he walks on screen. Harvey Keitel is a formidable screen presence in his own right, but it's De Niro we remember from the movie. We remember his destructive impulses, his raw volatility and foolish bravado that eventually leads to his downfall. De Niro was 30 at the time but Johnny Boy feels so much younger, and in many ways he is childish, lacking the maturity it takes to be a member of the fraternity he is so desperate to join. It's a more gritty and less polished collaboration than their later films, but it has as much power as any of them.