Beautifully haunting music sets the scene. Jason Patric as the grownup Shakes gives a sufficiently haunted and fitting narration for the innocence stolen from these kids, because of a stupid prank.
Hell’s Kitchen – sweaty ass neighbourhood in New York. You know the place, the place you grew up hating. Spent your childhood and will never go back to.
1966. A bond of brotherhood for four young boys. Fearless and invincible is youth.
They are content with very little and feeling a sense of ownership over their domain.
A world where Catholicism is important as is a sense of street justice. No crimes against the neighbourhood are permitted, and punishment is severe. Robert De Niro is the cool, approachable and staunch mentor and priest, Father Bobby.
King Benny (Vittorio Gassman) is the friendly neighbourhood mobster who relents the insistence of ‘Shakes’ to hire him to deliver packages.
The theme so far is patience and coldness as valued personality traits – meanwhile these kids live their days in heat, and always with a sense of urgency – to get laid, to grow up, to get paid. Lives centred around moral grey areas. And yet still adhering to a code.
These are kids with no clue about culture, but pure passion for the sweet simplicities – peeking into women’s changing rooms, playing basketball and skiving off.
Father Bobby just wants them to keep out of any serious trouble. He looks out for the boys. When the littlest John (Geoffrey Wigdor) gets beaten up by one of his mother’s boyfriends, the kid ends up in the hospital. Father Bobby has a chat with the guy and threatens to put him in the morgue should something like it happen again.
When we see these kids as adults, changed by years, they still share that bond. Perhaps stronger now because of what they all went through in the detention centre.
Fatman (Frank Medrano) – “Keep yourself mean and cut your life around it. That street is like a soup dish of life. You guys are soft like bread.”
Pranks are part of daily life for these boys, consequences are not. It’s a shock to them and to the neighbourhood when they get in deep trouble and have to face time. But it is also somehow nearly inevitable – except it could have been avoided if fate hadn’t planted them in shit. Because Father Bobby was steering them straighter.
They are justifiably afraid when the incident happens and they end up facing time. So young, so soft. I feel for the kids. And for their loved ones. As much as they fear doing time, they have no idea what they are about to endure.
Be strong, be cold inside. Don’t let them touch your heart. And when you get past this, you will forget the ghost of your past which the state took from you. And find someone, some thing to bring that smile back. The grownup Shakes’ narration meets the feeling of terror that these boys are about to fall into.
I doubt they’ll ever find a way out. Even after it’s over. The event will alter their deepest selves and replace the life they were meant for, with one that tastes more real.
Kevin Bacon as Nokes is an incredible villain and he has been dealt with by the time this coming of age story becomes a courtroom drama/thriller.
3 stars
the joy of eating and the folly of thinking 