Review of Goodfellas (92)

We had this movie lying around for a week and a half before we were able to sit down and watch it. When we were finally ready to put it in, we realized that half of the disc was cracked, thus rendering it unplayable. We ended up watching something else that night and Jason went on a quest the next day to find the movie. After checking at two video stores, calling his brother Donnie and even checking at the local library, he finally broke down and opened up an account at Blockbuster Video. This is one of the video stores he truly hates, but happened to have a copy of the movie in stock.

Plot
New York's Italian mafia is explored in this film based on the true story of wise guy Henry Hill. The film explores the rules and traditions of organized crime as Hill makes his way from young petty criminal, to big-time thief, to middle-aged cocaine addict and dealer, to his anonymous exile under the Witness Protection Program.

Jason's Thoughts
I'm not sure how the actual inner workings of the mafia go, but if I wanted to learn, this movie would probably is a good starting point. With Goodfellas, we get to follow Henry Hill throughout his life with the mafia and see all of its gritty realism - the language, the violence, the broads, and everything else that comes with the territory.

What is amazing about Goodfellas is that even with the subject matter of the movie, which is basically criminals living a life of crime and doing horrendous things, the movie sucks you in and takes you for a ride that spans four decades. Not only that, but the unlikable criminals actually become likeable characters. Sure, they all have their faults, but you can't help but feel sorry when Hill's friend, Tommy DeVito, is killed when he was becoming a made man or when Hill is finally apprehended by the feds.

The characters grow on you so much that you find yourself hoping for a happy ending where they can go on and live their lifestyle to the fullest, but you know in the back of your mind that it isn't going to happen. Instead, the group of people, who call themselves a family, would rather stab each other in the back and turn on each other if they are backed into a situation they need to get out of.

My only gripe about the movie is that it tends to focus too much on the lifestyle of the mafia and a few of the scenes came across to me like it was fluff and filler. That is not entirely a bad thing either as it does a great job at painting the whole picture, but I think that it took away a little from the real story at hand, which is what knocked it down to four stars for me. However, for that one bad mark there are a ton of great ones, such as the tremendous acting, wonderful camera work and great soundtrack, all of which I could go on for days about.

If you haven't already seen this movie, you should do yourself a favor and give it a try. I can almost guarantee that after seeing it you'll find yourself wondering why Ray Liotta's career never quite took off afterwards.

Crystal’s Thoughts
We seem to be on a good roll with the movies on the list, certainly a long way from Yankee Doodle Dandy. Granted, this movie is from the last few decades. It really seemed to have set the standard though for all movies to follow. The story line was intriguing and interactive while the acting was excellent. Viewing the movie was an engaging experience which helped with the flow of the movie. One of my gripes was the length of the movie, which seems to be a norm for these Oscar winners. A few of the scenes were also quite fake looking, but for that time, they were likely very realistic compared to movies of the past.

As a female, I would have liked to see more into the lives of the women. Of course, this was Goodfellas we were watching, not Goodwomen. That too could be a whole other movie. In this movie though, it was interesting to see the women constantly standing by the men, as if leaving the men would cause more turmoil than being cheated on by the husband. Even in the end, Karen stuck by Harry as he was apprehended. I don’t know too many women that would have stuck around that long.

As I sat down to write this, I brought up a list of characters as I usually do for writing my review. As always, I used Wikipedia. One thing I didn’t realize about this movie was that it was in the same year as Dances with Wolves. No offense to Goodfellas, but I after reading this tidbit, I can say the right movie won the Oscar that year. Goodfellas though still easily earned all four stars. The year 1990 was a good one for movies.

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