Review of GoodFellas (1990) by Man With N — 01 Aug 2013

Review contains spoilers.

It's kind of hard to tell why this is the sixth Scorsese movie I've seen. Somehow, after seeing five other Scorsese movies before this, I had no idea what to expect going into this. I kind of expected it to be yet another Robert De Niro/Scorsese vehicle that gets a lot of praise. For some reason, they advertise the movie like it's very De Niro centered, but, in many ways, it's way more of a Ray Liotta movie before it's a De Niro movie.

The movie succeeds at some major things to carry the whole movie. It makes these gangsters who turn out pretty despicable very deep and relatable. The three leads are very deep and gain a lot of it near the end when shit hits the fan. Henry Hill, played by Liotta, has wanted to be a gangster since he was a kid. He was already a lot like one. He knows everyone and everyone knows him. He parks cars for people, he works for people and he knows what to do and when to do it. He starts getting involved with the underworld with people like James Conway, played by De Niro. He's actually a pretty nice gangster, until stuff gets really serious.

He gets along with Henry, gets him to know Tommy DeVito(later played by Joe Pesci), and gets him involved with things he never thought he would. Henry and James are easily the most sympathetic in the movie. Henry gets involved with gangster life almost unintentionally. He keeps meeting the right people at the right time and then ends up in gangster life. He doesn't just kill random people or do a bunch of drugs; he just gets caught up in this life by Paul who is his boss. He's never violent unless he needs to be. Someone hurts his girl? He beats them up. He's violent in all of the right ways.

James will give money to about anyone he cares about or is nice to him. He would give 100 dollars to the guy who opens the door for him. He cares about his friends. He is truly broken when Tommy dies. He isn't violent unless his friends are in trouble. If one of his friends do something stupid, he calls them out for it or scolds them. He's the one who has to clean up everyone elses problems, like say they start something and he has to end it.

Tommy is almost a psychopath. He's a very violent person. They're playing a game and he wants the drinks served faster so he shoots the guy in the foot. After they get his foot settled out, he shoots all of his ammo into him for no good reason. He'll attack the waiters at a bar because of his tab. He gets mad at one of his buddies for saying he's a funny guy.

These guys sound wooden and about one dimensional. The directing saves the movie. Scorsese's directing and the amazing cast is what saves the movie. It sucks you in and then you can't let go. The performances are just amazing and also suck you in. Unlike a lot of Scorsese movies, this movie leaves room for subtle comedy that really works. The violence serves the story and gives the characters an extra dimension.

Sorry if this is a shitty review. In my defense, this is a hard movie to review.

I'll give Goodfellas a 9.9/10. I can never give a movie a full 10/10 because no movie is absolutely devoid of any plot holes or flaws. This movie flows a little too slow for the content it has to offer. Then again, I wouldn't really cut anything out except maybe the whole shooting Sam Jackson thing. It didn't really make much sense.