Director Martin Scorsese was friends with actor Steven Prince and cast him in the small but memorable role of the gun salesman in Taxi Driver. A year later, he caught back up with Prince for this short documentary about his life. At a mutual friend’s house, they sit on a couch as Prince spins yarns about his family, work, and (mostly) drug use while Scorsese’s camera rolls.
This must’ve been fun for Scorsese as the movie is essentially a filmed get together with friends shooting the shit and telling stories. The audience, however, may be underwhelmed as Prince’s anecdotes are hit-and-miss to say the least. They run the gamut of funny, to sad, to just plain bizarre. He’s a gifted storyteller to be sure, but it’s ultimately more satisfying for Scorsese and his buddies than for the audience.
The fact that many of his stories eventually circle back around to his drug use is what kind makes it a chore to sit through. If you were at a party with Prince, one or two of these tales would probably be about all you could take before you had to excuse yourself to get a drink. Since this is a movie, you’re pretty much forced to sit there and listen to him yammer on and on. Even though the picture clocks in at a scant fifty-five minutes, it often feels much longer thanks to its repetitive nature.
I’m a die-hard Scorsese fan, but for me, American Boy: A Profile of – Steven Prince is one of his slightest and least interesting works. However, it’s still of note, if only because one of Prince’s stories about administering an adrenaline shot to an overdosed junkie was later dramatized by Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction. Other than that, it’s not very memorable.
Scorsese caught up with Prince thirty years later for the sequel, American Prince.
AKA: American Boy.
