Rating of
3.5/4
Gangster movies always rock.
mdtinney - wrote on 05/31/10
The fact that someone is a terrific, legendary and highly talented and celebrated actor doesn't automatically make him a good director. That goes without saying. Robert De Niro is - as we all naturally know - among the best of the best when it comes to acting. I mean he is a pure genius.
He chose to make his directorial debut (as well as the only motion picture he has directed so far) out of the fine genre he was so familiar with (after playing Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather: Part II", David Aaronson in Sergio Leone's "Once upon a time in America", Al Capone in Brian De Palma's "The Untouchables", Jimmy Conway in Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" and so on...) that is, a gangster movie. Surprisingly he ended up directing a masterpiece, at least I think so. Interesting thing is "A Bronx tale" is not exclusively for adult viewers. It's a gangster movie all right so it's definitely violent from time to time but intentionally not far as violent as the films of this type normally tend to be. This is a moving, attractive and gripping story about a young boy who has to live between the shadow of two powerful men, his own father (De Niro) and local gangster Sonny (Palminteri in his very greatest role). I just watched "A Bronx tale" couple of days ago. I was quite hungry by the time I started to watch it and practically starving by the time of the end credits but there simply wasn't a single scene in this film for me to visit the fridge. I just didn't want to miss one moment - not even one second of sensational "A Bronx tale". And people, I've seen this film before. Chazz Palminteri's screenplay was excellent and the story was so utterly enchanting and fascinating there's not enough words to describe it. If this turns out to be the only movie De Niro directs he will certainly be remembered as a great director. "A Bronx tale" is one of the best gangster films ever.
