Martin Scorsese is one of those people whose works I check out almost entirely because he's popular, not because I like his track record. It's a matter of cultural education. This time, I opted to check out his earliest collaboration with Robert De Niro and arguably his first hit feature.
Both IMDb and Netflix summarize the plot as a minor crook, Charlie (Harvey Keitel), working his way up the mob ladder, but that's not what I recall. Netflix adds that he's in Little Italy (no points for guessing which city) and dating a woman with epilepsy, Teresa (Amy Robinson), whom we never see having a seizure, but her condition is important insofar as other mobsters wouldn't approve the relationship. Neither summary mentions De Niro's character of Johnny Boy, who's a cousin to Teresa, a buddy to Charlie, and a debtor to dangerous men.
Scorsese once described The Departed as his first film with a plot. That's an exaggeration, of course, but I knew what he meant: Most of his prior efforts, however classic, are loaded with optional, episodic scenes and little progression. MS could be the poster child for this phenomenon. I felt that nothing important happened until the third act, when Johnny Boy's outrageously irresponsible actions catch up with him and the repercussions spill over to Charlie, who really should have listened to advice not to hang with that loser.
De Niro got a lot of recognition for his performance, but I think Charlie's the more interesting character, if only because there's more to him. He tries to some extent to be a faithful Catholic but is heretical in his belief that he must atone for his sins outside of church -- and of course, he's an ambitious mobster. He figures his best shot at atonement is in helping Johnny Boy, for what good that does.
Indeed, Charlie's the only one whose thoughts we can hear, albeit in the voice of Scorsese, which might just make it less jarring. Through this semi-narration, we learn of his attraction to a Black woman and his concern about the controversy therein (putting aside any infidelity to Teresa). I added the "politically incorrect" tag not for how she and other Blacks are portrayed but for how characters sometimes talk about them. And about an apparently gay duo in one scene.
Even if you don't count slurs, MS set a record for profanity. Nowadays, finding its match isn't hard, but I still feel a need to warn you. And I see the precedent for Goodfellas with all that "breaking my balls" talk. There's also gratuitous full-frontal female nudity in a context I'd call erotic but unexciting.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about MS is that it shows what a young Scorsese could do on a relative shoestring budget of $500K, half of which was spent acquiring rights to a nice soundtrack. Most scenes were not shot in expensive New York. It's worth noting that both Warner Bros. and Roger Corman offered a lot more money to have MS be a blaxploitation pic; Scorsese was probably right to refuse.
MS may have been influential enough to justify its place on many lists of honor, but it's no Taxi Driver. If you're not a major Scorsese fan or cinema researcher, I wouldn't bother.
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