A Bronx Tale
By Kit Macdonald
At 81, it's odd that Robert De Niro hasn't directed more (his only other outing so far has been the 2006 spy drama The Good Shepherd) given the excellence of 1993's A Bronx Tale, his directorial debut. De Niro’s nuanced direction and Chazz Palminteri’s powerful screenplay combine to weave a story that's as personal as it is universal. It follows Calogero, a young boy torn between two father figures: his biological father, Lorenzo, a hardworking and principled bus driver, and Sonny, a charismatic local mob boss.
Palminteri wrote and performed the one-man-show stage version of A Bronx Tale, which De Niro proposed adapting when he met Palminteri backstage after a performance in 1990. "This is one of the greatest one-man shows I've ever seen, if not the greatest," he told Palminteri. "This is a movie, this is an incredible movie." Palminteri's performance as Sonny launched his own, hugely successful film and TV acting career, and De Niro is deliciously understated as Lorenzo.