Somewhere between GoodFellas, Grease and West Side Story, Robert De Niro's directorial debut is full of Brooklyn flavour that even overcomes its lack of excitement and pace. If you can survive its torrent of bad language, there's a lot to savour in this story of a Bronx boy who worships a lethal gangster, played with charm by Chazz Palminteri (who also wrote it), despite the effort of the boy's father (De Niro) to keep him on the straight and narrow. In spite of the gangster's viciousness and ruthlessness, he's also like a father to the boy, restricting him to sideline activities, not allowing him to become a gun-toting hoodlum 'like me' and even offering some laconic advice on his love life. The boy's well played (at nine) by Francis Capra, who must have the longest eyelashes in films and, at 17, by throaty Lillo Brancato, whose romance with a black schoolmate enables the film to raise a few pertinent issues that go beyond its ghetto portrait. Joe Pesci turns up in a cameo role, one of many colourful characters who include Mush, a losing gambler so abysmal that 'the racecourse touts gave him tickets already torn up'.

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