Review of GoodFellas (1990) by Rocknblues 8 — 30 Oct 2013

Goodfellas is largely considered the best film that Martin Scorsese has ever made. It's a very stylistic film that runs at a pretty quick pace and you will be shocked that 2 1/2 hours flew by. All the performances are great, and Joe Pesci has a very menacing character. The soundtrack is great and it's a quality biopic. You get a real sense of how hectic and dangerous this lifestyle must be.

The thing that bothers me though is that I found Jimmy the more compelling character. That's disappointing considering that the film is largely about Henry Hill. It's not that Ray Liotta gives a bad performance... The problem is that the film lacks dramatic attention, and Hill's actions are largely predictable. So the Jimmy and Tommy characters are more interesting due to their unpredictability and the great performances obviously help. So you have a sort of a biopic where the other characters outshine the lead character.

Outside of the film being cool, I simply can't have any further emotions about it. The characters aren't anywhere as good as Travis Bickle, and the film is probably a bit more style than I like. But that doesn't make it a bad film. The performances are too good, and it is a re-watchable and entertaining movie. It's just not all that I hoped for.