Metacritic reviews

It's worth seeing for the acting, and it's got some good laughs in it, and New York is colorfully observed, but don't tell me this movie is about human nature, because it's not; it's about acting.

There are some funny lines in The Pope of Greenwich Village. Once the eye knows the characters and the ear gets accustomed to the filthy (and somehow quaint) street slang, Rosenberg keeps the pace entertaining. [22 June 1984, p.D8]

If The Pope doesn't fly Sinatra-high or dig Scorsese-deep, it is an appealing commercial movie with a gritty sense of the city, an effective narrative drive and a very watchable cast of pungent performers. [25 June 1984, p.68]

The Pope of Greenwich Village, set in Manhattan’s Italian community, is a near-miss in its transition from novel [by Vincent Patrick] to film, setting forth an offbeat slice-of-life tale of small-time guys involved in big trouble.

The Pope Of Greenwich Village benefits immensely from Rosenberg’s decision to film on location in Little Italy, which gives every scene a lived-in feel. The city’s streets, restaurants, back rooms, and lofts are as much a character as Charlie and Paulie, a dreamer and a schemer trying to get ahead in a world where the chips are stacked against them.

Vincent Patrick, author of the best-selling novel, wrote the screenplay that gives the actors, including the superb Geraldine Page, plenty to run with. It just never gets them anywhere.

Little works in this contrived mess, but by far the worst aspect of it is Roberts' over-the-top histrionics. The film tries hard to create a relationship similar to that of Harvey Keitel and Robert DeNiro in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, but the actors' performances are so out of sync that the effort quickly becomes hopeless.

Movie tradition sets awfully high standards for these sorts of fatalistic, criminally compromised sibling relationships. Rourke and Roberts don't quite measure up. [23 June 1984, p.C1]

With its close attention to the Little Italy milieu and its farcical treatment of a safecracking, the picture is designed to turn Martin Scorsese's scathing Mean Streets into a sitcom. It could be done, and done well, in the right hands, but those hands do not belong to the calloused paws of the pugilistically inclined director Stuart Rosenberg. [22 June 1984]

A sad re-run of the Mean Streets idea (awkwardly adapted by Vincent Patrick from his own admirable novel).