ONE OF THE BEST GANGSTER MOVIES EVER WATCHED.

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source: GoodFellas

Goodfellas

Spoilers herein. Competent filmmakers are rare -- there is no doubt that Scorsese is competent and should be celebrated on that score alone. But his films are empty. They take you into a gangsterland (even `Temptation,' even `Innocence') and snap along until they end and then you leave. But you leave with nothing, and I expect more from a competent filmmaker. The problem -- I speculate -- is the degree to which Scorsese is locked in the Italian tradition of storytelling and its 60's incarnation in neo-realistic films. This is a matter of performance, where the force of the story is all in the force of the storyteller. The performer here is Scorsese. His screen persona is epitomized in the Pesci character: driving, driving the group by pressing on. By speaking over others. By showing the threat of violence. There's power here. It grabs your attention like Pesci grabs that of the fellas. I can see Scorsese constantly saying to himself that he'd be nuts to live any other way. But aside from some storytelling mechanics, there are no ideas here, no ambiguities, no interesting characters, no plot maturity, no symmetries, nothing to wonder about and discuss on your way home. But we should salute some of the decisions. Scorsese chooses to frame the film as a story told by the Liotta character. (He plays an Irishman, but looks and acts Italian.) Narrative voiceovers. A clever framing device with us locked in the car at midway through and mirrored in the beginning. The end with Liotta looking directly and speaking into the camera and shooting us. And the camera. Much has been said of the camera. The long, tracking shots, especially the much-copied entrance through the kitchen. The pullback-zoom toward the end when Liotta and DeNiro meet. The occasional corner ceiling shot. Normally I would love this, especially since it is in the framework of a consistent notion of the eye. What bothers me is what that eye is: it is dependent on the characters. The characters drive this movie and pull the camera. Consider the kitchen entry scene: the camera is on a string behind Liotta. We follow, always follow, just as the fellas at Pesci's table have to follow his prattling. Compare that to dePalma's similar long tracking shot of Bruce Willis at the start of `Bonfire of the Vanities.' DePalma's camera isn't dragged along behind by the force of Willis. It floats to the front, the side, swooping around, independently curious. We the viewers are masters of the story. It's the difference between the northern and southern European storytelling traditions. Seeing how little deference the camera gives us really grates when the payoff is so slight. It makes DeNiro pretty hard to take. Yes, we all get impressed by the power of his performance. But it is always clear that it is a performance: we are not seeing a character but a `serious actor,' employed as a tractor to pull us along. Is this a great film? Well, it did not change my life, give my dreams new form, or provide the basis for any meaningful discussion with my wife. It didn't help me define myself or my world. It provided no new perspectives on the things I struggle with. (And many, many films do one or more of these things.) So for me no. What a waste.

Goodfellas makes you feel like you are watching guys that you know or knew. To this day, I have a friend that still talks like Jimmy Two Times. He always says things like "Nice Nice" and that was just a background piece in Goodfellas. But that is the point, all that is background is just as important as the main players and locales. It all paints us a perfect picture of what mob life must be like. And with all due kudos to The Godfather, but there is no other film that has ever made mob life look so real and feel so tangible the way Goodfellas does. To say that Joe Pesci is the best part of this film would be to discredit the rest of the cast, but at the same time, you have to mention him in some way. His portrayal of Tommy is haunting. Here is a man that is so insecure and wants to be the top dog, the made man so bad that he can't decipher between what is a joke and what is disrespect towards him. Of course the scene in question is when he shoots a common boy for telling Tommy to screw himself after he shot him in the leg. You would think the guy has a right to let off a little steam and vent, but Tommy is always looking for the diss. He is always looking to find some hidden gesture from someone that is putting him down. Even at the beginning when he is getting on Henri in the now famous " You're a funny guy " scene. He is kidding with Henri but deep down inside he is angry with him, you can see it and feel it. Joe Pesci gave the performance of his career and he richly deserved to win best supporting actor that year. The story and script by Pileggi is sheer inside brilliance. You can feel the inside observations that no one can have except for a guy that spent his whole life on the inside. They ring so true and they get into your blood. From scenes like the fat guy running around delivering messages to the other mob guys because he doesn't like to use the phone to the scene when Henri, Jimmy and Tommy have Billy Bats in the trunk but they stop off at Tommy's moms house for a late night dinner of pasta and such. They also have to borrow a sharp knife to finish off the guy in the trunk, but to his mom they have to cut off the hoof of a dear that hit the car. And the scene where Tommy does kill the young kid for joking with him and then Jimmy gets mad at him, not for killing the guy but because he doesn't want to dig a hole tonight. There are so many tiny observations in Goodfellas that give it the authenticity it has. And it is a film that stays with you for years to come. I think this is Scorcese's best film and although I understand and accept why the academy awarded Dances With Wolves the accolades it did, if this film would have swept the Oscars that year, no one would have been surprised. It is a landmark film and I think it is one of the best films ever made. And again, taking no credit away from Coppolla's Godfather epics, but this gets inside the mafia on a deeper level. It goes one step beyond what Coppolla gave us, and for that Goodfellas should be remembered as the best film about gangsters ever made.

Maybe I was so disappointed in this movie because I'd already seen the Godfathers and the Sopranos, but this movie couldn't have disappointed me more. I don't even know where to begin. The plot was dull and predictable. I realize it is based on a true story, but it was still boring. For the caliber of actors in it, I wasn't moved by any of the performances. The pace was choppy. The final half hour felt like an entirely different film. Very disappointing mob saga and one of the most overrated film of all time.

This is one hell of a film about the mobsters, based on a true story and coming from one of the great directors of all time. This is about Henry Hill, the narrator of the story, an Irish simple person who gets involved with the Mafia at a very young age and continues his life through it. There is no major plot in this film, just isolated incidents one of which was the turning point of Hill's life. Scorsese, as brilliant as he ever was, shows violence, sex and drugs etc in his own trademark style. And his actors helps him to make this film one of the classics. Robert DeNiro is not present in much of the film, nor his acting leaves too much impression. The three actors who really did their best job here are Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci and Lorraine Bracco. I hate to say that most youngsters today don't know too much about Liotta or how talented he was. I asked my younger brother about him and he said, "The man who did the voice on GTA: Vice City?". This is partly because Liotta did not get too many big roles after that, especially in recent years. But here he is just brilliant as Hill. It's Pesci's one of the best too. Playing a mad mobster with dark sense of humor wasn't his usual type. And Lorraine Bracco becomes the perfect lead female in such type of films. The film's got smart screenplay and excellent cinematography. And I don't know how many times Scorsese will be denied his Academy recognition. I hate to see a lifetime achievement award as his first Oscar. But things are going like that.

This is the gangster film at its finest. Scorsese is on top form as are Pesci and De Niro. Liotta has never bettered the performance he gives here. The film starts as it means to go on - violent, full of profanity, fast paced and very stylish. The story follows Liotta's character from boy to man as he climbs his way up through the ranks of organised crime. We see all the highs and lows of his life and meet a host of very believable and very undesirable characters along the way. It's a film full of memorable scenes whilst remaining much more than the sum of its individual parts at the same time. This is what all movies should be like. It draws you in and won't let you out of its grasp at any point. When it finishes you feel exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. If ever the word 'masterpiece' was meant to be used, it was for this film.