Compared with the always dirty and run-down New York streets in the Scorsese lens, De Niro's Bronx is clean and tidy, with a retro and warm tone, like a summer evening breeze blowing on the cheeks, beautiful to unreal. Reminiscent of the sanitation and chaos on the streets of SF, I want to live in the Bronx in the movie. It is hard to imagine that this is an area occupied by gangs, where there will be fights and even shootings. Perhaps influenced by the reminiscence filter of the author Chazz Palminteri, De Niro has created a warm and distorted Italian neighborhood for us. (But in fact, most of the white neighborhood street scenes that appeared in the film were taken in Queens.)
The story itself is also tender and tender.
At the beginning, I was very familiar with the scenes of the Italian gangster killing and exonerating in other movies countless times. I thought it would be a story about the son of a good family being led astray by the gang boss. Maybe Calogero is the next Sonny. During this process, he and his upright father will inevitably have conflicts and breaks, until the moment of death on the street, he will regret it.
But I was wrong.
As the protagonist grows up, the story introduces the background of the era when the American civil rights movement brought the end of apartheid in the 1960s. The adolescent Calogero was pure in nature and didn't hate blacks like the racist friends. He even eliminated his worries under the guidance of Sonny and started a relationship with black girls smoothly. In the end, Sonny also prevented him from getting involved in ethnic conflicts and saved his life.
Fortunately, Calogero not only did not step into the underworld because of his close relationship with the gangster brother Sonny, but because of this, he got another father who guided him to grow up. Sonny and his biological father Lorenzo, who was originally at odds with him, also reconciled with him at Sonny's funeral at the end of the film, admitting that he is Calogero's mentor and friend, and even took the initiative to call Sonny the nickname C for his son. The composition of De Niro and Palminteri, each occupying half of the screen and facing each other, clearly reveals this point.
De Niro does not have too many scenes in the movie. Lillo Brancato, a young actor who played Calogero, took on a lot of roles alone and did quite well. He was even regarded as De Niro's second place, and everyone thought he had a promising future. Ironically, Calogero in the film was still an innocent and upright teenager at the end of the film, while actor Lillo himself became addicted to drugs in his 20s and was later arrested on suspicion of a crime in the Bronx district. It was really cruel. coincide. About his story In 2018, there was a documentary called Wasted Talent. It must be named after the line taught by his biological father Lorenzo to Calogero: "The saddest thing in life is wasted talent."
I watched Palminteri as Woody Allen’s "Bullets Fly across Broadway" before, and his vivid image of the gangster in that movie inexplicably becoming an ideal playwright left me too impressed, so I always feel inexplicably happy when I watch this movie.
At the end, there is also a friendly guest appearance by Joe Pessi, an important figure in the De Niro gangster universe. I can't help but want to laugh when he comes out. The impression of his previous roles is really hard to dispel.
A Bronx Tale is very good as a directorial debut. De Niro has been acting as a director for a long time, and he didn't make so many gangster movies in vain and even made the "De Niro gangster universe".
The film's imitation of Scorsese is very obvious. In the first ten minutes of the story, I didn't notice the director's name and thought it was another Scorsese gangster work. As the story unfolded, I realized that this could never be Scorsese’s work. The gangster characters in his films are not kind and tender. They are always crude, violent, selfish and mean; the love of boys and girls is not sweet and innocent. There must be hysteria or betrayal.
What kind of characters and stories are more real is self-evident, but it does not prevent me from liking Scorsese's gangster movies as well as this movie. Just as I like to watch a large number of completely unrealistic, romantic, and idealized brotherly loyalties in Hong Kong gangster movies, sometimes I watch movies just to dream and to be moved by certain emotions.
As mentioned earlier, the streets in the movie are too tidy, and all kinds of props are also new. Whether it's the buses that De Niro drives day after day, or the cars that friends and friends drive to die, Sonny's bar is always bright and clean without grease stains and alcohol stains. The sparkle of the props brings a sense of distortion, and the whole movie is more like a fairy tale. In a sense, it is a big shortcoming.
This film can be regarded as an unpopular film. It is recommended to neighbors who like De Niro, gangster movies, or simply like the American style of the 1967 era.
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