Robert De Niro debuts as a director with this explosively entertaining film version of Chazz Palminteri's 1989 off-Broadway hit. Palminteri wrote the play to give himself work as an actor; for inspiration he used his own childhood on the mean streets of the Bronx in the 1960s. Calogero, the kid in the play, has a problem: Does he model himself on bus driver Lorenzo, his hard-working father, or gun-toting Sonny, the local wiseguy?
Onstage, Palminteri played all the parts. Onscreen, De Niro plays