“I learned something from these two men. I learned to give love and get love unconditionally. You just have to accept people for what they are. And I learned the greatest gift of all: the saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will shape your life forever.”
Crime dramas have been trying to show the gritty realness of the criminal world since, well, always, but it’s rare to have a crime boss that’s portrayed as a genuinely good person, even one that grows to be a better person by learning how to love more. That formula is not an easy one to execute, but A Bronx Tale managed to do just that. Directed by Robert De Niro (yes, that Robert De Niro) and starring Lillo Brancato, Robert De Niro, and Chazz Palminteri, this is a story about love and family just as much as it’s about crime and brutality, and it balances these two opposite ideas very carefully, even more effectively than the original crime family movie, The Godfather. It does this by showing us not a career criminal or family member, but a boy growing up in the Bronx, learning life lessons from both the local crime boss and his working-man father, who refuses to have anything to do with the criminal world. Seeing this teenage boy try to make sense of the two different worlds he lives in is a big part of the unique charm of this film.
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