THE GANG THAT COULDN'T SHOOT STRAIGHT (1971) ** Jimmy Breslin's wonderful Brooklyn underworld characters and absurdist scenes over the border into surrealism, all way too ridiculous to be based on anything other than personal experience. There haven't been too many people in the history of mankind that could deliver a stinging 1200 word political denouncement with the pathos and gravitas of those deeper truths found only in the corners of smokey bars (Mike Royko is the only other one who comes immediately to mind), but that's a high-wire act to sustain throughout an entire novel. The film almost perfectly reflects my reading of the novel-more turning pages while awaiting the next wonderful scene than being drawn into the necromancer's world. That all having been said, and in a pithy manner that might well lead to the introduction of Mr. Breslin's fist into the side of my head from whence it came, it's still fun. Obviously you lose some of the writer's stylings in the transfer to film, but there are plenty of apposite reflection in the self-absorbed, incompetent, cosmetic but resourceful campaigns (against the rest of the mafia, against his hair, towards his nap) of Jerry Orbach, the genetically devoid of satisfaction looks of Leigh Taylor-Young, and the gravely gypsy edicts of Jo Van Fleet. Herve Villechaize waits, but for the boat not the plane-watch for it. Such charms being worth what they are, the very best part of the film is unquestionably Robert De Niro (surprise, he's never done that in any of his other films), as the kleptomaniac Italian bicycle racer posing as a priest. I've considered De Niro's appearance to be many things-distinguished, intense, imposing, silly, sophisticated, worldly, poetic, philosophical, soulful, meandering, taut-but here, somehow, he acts handsome. I don't mean a little bit, either-I mean, the man acts matinee idol handsome. Show me a woman more interested in Tony Curtis than this guy, and I show you a woman who spends too much time reading magazines. What's the first thing a young Italian bicycle racer bachelour does to decorate his very unfurnished apartment? Steal posters of Sophia Loren and Superman, of course! It all has the bits and bobs of the real genius that was Breslin, but the intensity of that genius is regrettably lost in the interconnecting material rather than sustained.