Goodfellas

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♥	This article is dedicated to the memory of Ray Liotta and Paul Sorvino.

Goodfellas
This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 2000.
Genre: Crime, drama Directed by: Martin Scorsese Produced by: Irwin Winkler Written by: Nicholas Pileggi Martin Scorsese Based on: Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi Starring: Robert De Niro Ray Liotta Joe Pesci Lorraine Bracco Paul Sorvino Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus Editing: Thelma Schoonmaker Production company: Warner Bros. Pictures Irwin Winkler Productions Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures Release date: September 9, 1990 (Venice) September 18, 1990 (United States) Runtime: 146 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $25 million Box office: $47.1 million

Goodfellas (stylized as GoodFellas) is a 1990 crime drama film starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta. The film was directed by Martin Scorsese. The film is based on the 1986 novel Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi.

Plot

Gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) talks about his life as a gangster and having gangster friends named James "Jimmy the Gent" Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). The film shows how he lived his life as a gangster and how he succeeded at being one. It also shows how Henry felt about living the life as a gangster.

Why It Rocks

1. Superb acting especially Ray Liotta as Henry, Robert De Niro as Jimmy and Joe Pesci as Tommy.
2. Great characters such as Henry Hill, Jimmy Conway, Tommy DeVito, Karen Friedman Hill, Paul Cicero, and Billy Batts.
3. Great storyline about the life of a boy who starts working for the Mafia very early in his life and all the good and bad things that come from being in the mobster life.
4. This film serves as a deconstruction of Mafia film tropes.
   • Of the Mafia film genre, specifically as showing mobsters not as urban lowlifes in ghettos, but living middle-class lives in Stepford Suburbia, which in turn inspired The Sopranos years later. Much of the action takes place in broad daylight with gangster activity more or less an everyday affair.
   • Numerous mob practices are explored and illuminated in such a way that makes them come across less as friendly gangster or intelligent criminals, and more as egotistical and pigheaded buffoons who constantly stir up trouble during big important moments or jobs. Tommy continually pushes peoples buttons and starts more trouble than he fixes, eventually getting to the point where he kills a made man (a huge no-no in mob culture) and is marked for death because of it. Henry also initially comes across as suave and intelligent, but later demonstrates that his lack of education and formal learning are a huge problem for him when he starts getting into the drug trade and begins making dozens of mistakes, like sampling his own supply and involving his wife.
   • People turn to the mob because of superficial appearance and status, not because of anything like "loyalty" or "needing a family". Henry becomes a mobster due to taking numerous small jobs from Paulie, eventually working his way up to a big earner, and he states numerous times that the power and wealth that came from that position was the best part of being in the mafia. However, it's also shown that this power and wealth also put Henry in numerous bad positions, such as having to bury the body of a made man and dig it up later, or get into the drug trade to survive in prison.
   • Henry Hill's final narration was intended by Scorsese to be a 180 from the warning: "don't become a mobster", at least the idea that Hill squealing on his buddies to get out of prison implies that he's atoning for his sins when all he regrets is getting caught. Indeed the song that plays over the end, the Sid Vicious cover of My Way implies that for him the entire life was worth it.
   • The mafia's practice of outliving your usefulness becomes a serious problem during the last third of the film. After Tommy gets whacked during his induction ceremony, Henry devolves into a nervous wreck and his relationship with Jimmy becomes increasingly strained, both of them coming to believe the other is plotting their downfall for different reasons- Jimmy for his involvement in the Lufthansa heist, and Henry for his recent run-in with the narcs. The majority of the Lufthansa guys end up spending copious amounts of money right after one of the biggest heists in American history, which ends up causing all of them to get whacked by Jimmy, and only increases Henry's paranoia about remaining in the mob. As a matter of fact, its heavily implied that Jimmy tried to get Henry killed by putting him up for phony hit, while later seemingly attempting to get Karen assassinated as well. This proves to be the last straw, and Henry gladly walks in to witness protection to rat on Paulie and Jimmy in order to save his own skin.
5. This film presents the Mafia as a dark parody of the American Dream. They believe that they are pursuing success, wealth, fame and influence by their own brand of criminal enterprise, when legitimate enterprise generally fails to reward hard work. The main reason why Henry Hill wants to be a gangster is that to him, Paulie and the neighborhood tough guys were more real and open to them then the legitimate authority.
6. Henry Hill is a deconstruction of a mob soldier in pretty much every way. He is handsome, well dressed and quite wealthy like his contemporaries, but he is not smart, eloquent, honorable, or sophisticated, being from a poor immigrant family who didn't even finish high school. Much of Henry's life in the mob is spent on him desperately trying to placate his "friends", either by defusing Tommy before he kills people or helping Jimmy with various scams to keep them both afloat. He's an abusive parent, a drug addict, an adulterer, a murderer, a thief, a racist and a thug, and by the end of the film, he's a rat.
7. Great cinematography.
8. Great dialogue with lots of memorable lines.
   • "What do ya mean, funny? Let me understand this 'cause, I don't know, maybe it's me, I'm a little fucked up maybe, but I'm funny how? Funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh...I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How the fuck am I funny? What the fuck is so funny about me?".
   • "Now go home and get your fucking shinebox".
   • "There was nothing that we could do about it. Batts was a made man, Tommy wasn't".
9. There are also plenty of memorable scenes.
   • Tommy's reaction to Henry calling him "funny".
   • The Epic Tracking Shot of Henry and Karen breaking the line at a restaurant and entering through the kitchen, scored to "And Then He Kissed Me".
   • Tommy beating up Billy Batts to the tune of Donovan's "Atlantis".
   • The scene where Tommy, Jimmy, Henry, stop over at Tommy's House and have dinner with his kindly mother (played by Martin Scorsese's mom Catherine, in a scene-stealing turn), and simply shoot the breeze in the middle of their hit of Batts (who is trapped in the trunk during the entire detour).
   • Tommy being whacked for killing Billy Batts and Jimmy's reaction to the event.
   • The bodies from the Lufthansa heist being found, to the tune of "Layla" by Derek and the Dominoes.
   • The final shot showing Henry Hill spending the rest of his life as a schnook, and having no real remorse for his crimes.
10. The film was groundbreaking at the time as it shows the crudest side of how lower-ranking mobsters operate, particularly associates, soldiers, and captains. It also gave us a more complex look of how the American Mafia operated in the 70s and early 80s, when the organization started to decline. In fact, this modern look of the American Mafia was key to the development of series such as The Sopranos.
11. It has great narration, especially from Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco.
12. It inspired other films and TV shows based on gangsters and mafias.
13. The film is considered to be a major turning point in Martin Scorsese's career in his '90s filmmaking.
14. Great production.
15. The film does a great job at capturing the atmosphere of each decade the film goes through despite the many time jumps.
16. Great soundtrack that consists of licensed music that also helps set the atmosphere for each decade.

Bad Qualities

1. The poster gives the impression that Robert De Niro is the main character when Ray Liotta is.
   • It doesn't help that sources put De Niro in the top bill despite Hill being the protagonist. Again, this has happened before with films like The Godfather putting legendary actors in the bill despite another playing the protagonist.
2. Henry can be really despicable since he cheats on his wife twice and even assaults her. Although given that he's a deconstruction of a mob soldier, this does make sense.
3. It's never told what happened to Henry's family after he becomes a gangster as only his brother is seen after the 50's.
4. Some viewers may find the protagonists’ endless, repetitive violence so dull and despicable that they don’t really care who gets killed or imprisoned for it.
5. The substantial romanticization of certain real-life figures may cause some casual viewers to mistakenly associate fact with fiction regarding the characters, as with other true story adaptations. Examples include but not limited to;
   • Henry Hill killed three people and was already a schnook both physically and during and after his mob life. Despite being a good deconstruction of a low level gangster, the real Hill does not miss the life due to his fear of getting whacked and died without having a bullet on his head.
   • Tommy DeSimone was far more sadistic and psychopathic in real life, having killed people as target practice, and was a rapist. He disappeared and was never seen again.
   • Paul Vario was more ruthless and did not care about the main trio nor was the kindly capo that welcomed everyone.
   • Jimmy Burke was more brutal, selfish and ruthless than in the film, in some regards was more dangerous than Tommy.

Reception

The film was released on September 19, 1990 with positive reviews from critics and audiences and currently holds a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average of 9 out of 10 and a critic consensus that reads "Hard-hitting and stylish, GoodFellas is a gangster classic – and arguably the high point of Martin Scorsese's career." Film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film a "two thumbs way up" and named it their best film of 1990. Roger Ebert gave the film a four out of four stars and stated in his review "No finer film has ever been made about organized crime – not even The Godfather." In 2000, Goodfellas was placed in the National Film Registry.

Box Office

The film opened up at #1 at the box office on its opening weekend with a gross of $6 million. Overall, the film made more than $46 million worldwide on a $25 million budget.

Awards and nominations

Goodfellas was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture. But, it won one Award for Best Supporting Actor for Joe Pesci.

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External links

• Goodfellas at the Internet Movie Database
• Goodfellas on Rotten Tomatoes