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Rating: 5 out of 5
“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.”
— Henry Hill
Some words never seem as right as the one Henry states at the beginning of this film. Playing “Cops and Robbers” was always the game at recess. No one wanted to be a cop. It was all about the robbers and making your voice sound like Rocky from the Looney Tunes. Major props need to be given to Martin Scorsese. This film is pure entertainment and one of if not the best gangster film of all time. This film has it all from a great story, amazing characters, iconic dialogue, violence, and the best storytelling in cinema.
Directed by Martin Scorsese, Goodfellas is an adaptation of the 1985 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese. Pretty much the whole movie is the narration of the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill and his friends and family from 1955 to 1980. Goodfellas is narrated and through the eyes of Henry Hill (Liotta). The film opens with three men driving in their car late at night on a highway. In the car are Henry Hill (Liotta), Jimmy Conway (DeNiro) and Tommy DeVito (Pesci). Jimmy and Tommy are asleep when Henry hears a loud, thumping noise. Trying to figure out the sound source, Henry suddenly realizes they need to stop and check the trunk. They continue to drive into a desolate area when they park their car. When the three men open the trunk, they find a man whose ass been whipped, wrapped in bloody tablecloths. Tommy loses his damn mind and stabs the man several times with a knife until Jimmy pulls out his gun and shoots the man four times. This is the beginning of Scorsese’s epic gangster film. You want to set a tone and show a new gangster era, this is how you start it off.
The film jumps to the past and shows a young Henry Hill and how he idolizes the crime family gangsters that operate in his neighborhood. Henry loves it so much that he quits school and starts working for them full time. He starts to become one of the family, which is shown when his parents find out he doesn’t attend school. His father loses his s**t, so what does the crime family do for him??? They beat up the mail main and have any school-related items sent to them directly. He meets local mob capo, Paulie Cicero (Sorvino), and Paulie’s close associate Jimmy Conway (De Niro). Both men help shape Henry’s criminal career and life. When Henry gets pinched for selling cartons of cigarettes, he is given a slap on the wrist by the court. When Henry walks out, he is cheered by his mob family. At first, Henry doesn’t understand until Jimmy gives him a “graduation gift” and explains that Henry didn’t reveal any names to the police and learned the two most important things in their line of work: “Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.” That is some deep knowledge and advice right there.
Over the years, Henry starts gaining more of Paulie’s trust by doing risky jobs. Henry’s friends become increasingly daring and dangerous. Henry meets and falls in love with Karen (Bracco), a no-nonsense young Jewish woman who doesn’t understand Henry’s life. Karen feels uneasy about her boyfriend’s career. Still, she is also “turned on” by it, especially when Henry viciously pistol whips her neighbor for trying to force himself on her. Henry and Karen eventually marry. Life is great for the pair and Henry’s career. Like all things, everything that goes up must come down one day.
First thing first, BIG UP to Martin Scorsese. The dude made an excellent gangster film. Actually, you can’t expect anything less from Scorsese when he makes a gangster film. Homeboy was built and prepared to make great gangster films. Goodfellas is the film that will make you fall in love with some modern-day gangster films. If the likes of the Godfather isn’t what you want, then this movie should do the trick for you. Scorsese should be commended for his direction, style, and overall tone of this film.
Now let’s talk about the elephant in the room before continuing the review of this film. Henry gets one amazing sentence of advice, and when s**t goes wrong, he f***s it up majorly. What advice does Jimmy give to Henry?????? “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.” Classic line and one that should be honored by everyone. The line was spoken at the beginning of the film, and it held so true. You never supposed to rat out your homies, and you keep your secrets to yourself. When things got tough, and Henry saw that Jimmy was trying to get rid of him, the dude sang like a bird and threw EVERYONE under the bus. Not cool, man. Not cool at all.
Now, what should be genuinely marveled with this film is the overall story. This is one of the few films of its kind to show the rise and fall of a gangster and all of his friends. What is truly special about this film is that it had a modern-day telling through the eyes of two characters and showed the organization’s tradition.
The story is amazingly told through the eyes of Henry. Through his eyes, we get an inside scoop of what it means to be a gangster and how one works their way up. For example, when the man talks about Tommy. Now Tommy is a freakin nut but still. Can’t go around talking about someone who has connections. Well, the scene was in a Jay-Z song, but dude gives his business over to Paulie. What happens? They run the man business to the ground and drown his ass in debt until he can’t pay, and then they burn his s**t to the ground. Gangsta move right there. This is what the whole movie pretty much is. Just how Henry does job after job for his “family.”
Now what is great about the other half of the story is seeing it through Karen’s eyes. Karen is definitely naïve to Henry and his “job,” and she goes along with it. Seeing things through her eyes adds another element to the story. A female touch and view that had significantly been missing in all gangster films. One of the best examples of Karen telling her side of things is when she sits with the other wives. It’s funny because she is saying what everyone is thinking and how the other wives just shop. She is out of the norm until she slowly becomes just like them.
Who wants to hear about characters? An excellent gangster film has VIOLENCE, and this film has a ton of it. The movie starts off with violence. We see the three main characters, riding down the road until they hear a bump from the trunk. They pull over at their destination, and when they open up the trunk, they straight up kill the dude. I mean, Tommy stabs the dude like a hundred times, and Jimmy shoots him a couple of times. That is the introduction to the violence in this film. It doesn’t stop there. People are getting slapped around, shot, or put in a meat truck for the “fun” of it.
The acting is top-notch in this film. Ray Liotta does a fantastic job Henry Hill. He just seemed to embody the role of Henry, and he truly makes it his own. He has that gangster look about him also. Lorraine Bracco as Karen Hill is top-notch. She is fantastic, and she is fierce and sassy in the beginning. Homegirl rolled up on Henry and was ready to beat his ass for standing her up. Lorraine makes an appearance later on in a gangster show called the Sopranos. In that one, she plays a calm therapist to a mob boss.
I want to give an all-time special shout out to Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito. Pesci played Tommy as the crazy and insane friend who didn’t tolerate disrespect at all. A character with a very fiery temper. Pesci stole the movie during the scene when everyone is sitting around the table, and Tommy is telling a story. When Henry says he is funny, Pesci flips the script and becomes so serious that everyone believes that he is genuinely pissed. Such a great scene to watch.
Goodfellas is a great gangster film. A film that goes deep into a mobster’s life who would do anything until he breaks one of the cardinal rules. You never should snitch on your friends. That is a significant no no. Overall, go watch Goodfellas because it is one of the best films around.
