In Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, Harvey Keitel’s character uses the first name Charlie.
Charlie Cappa is the film’s central character, a young Italian American living in New York’s Little Italy. He tries to balance personal morality, family expectations, religious guilt, and loyalty to his reckless friend Johnny Boy, played by Robert De Niro.
Mean Streets was Scorsese’s breakthrough feature and established themes that became central to his later work: Catholic guilt, criminal ambition, male friendship, and neighborhood identity. Charlie is not a conventional gangster hero; he is conflicted and hopes to move toward a more respectable life while remaining tied to his community.
The character is sometimes confused with Johnny Boy because De Niro’s performance is especially flamboyant. However, Johnny Boy is Charlie’s volatile friend, while Charlie is the character played by Keitel and the film’s main viewpoint.