GoodFellas (1990)
Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco; d. Martin Scorsese; A

A police man. A fire man. A doctor. The future President of the United States. When asked what they want to be when they grow up, many young boys give these answers. It's the dream of your adverage boy, perhaps stemming from a belief that they should help out society. Henry Hill had those kinds of dreams, too. He wanted to be a gangster.

GoodFellas, based on Nicholas Pileggi's true crime novel Wiseguy, is the story of half-Irish, half-Sicilian mobster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), who entered the world he dreamed of at a young age. Henry's life in the Mafia begins in the late 1950's, as a wide-eyed teenager who gets a job at a local restautant owned by Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), the leader of a prominent Mafia family. Henry quickly becomes popular within the Cicero family and is even allowed to serve at Paulie's secret meetings. It is at one of these meetings that he meets Irish gangster Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro), who, at that time, is in his 20's and very, very rich. Jimmy takes Henry under his wing, and even lets Henry participate in many of his robberies (which is, after all, what Jimmy loved to do!). By the age of 21, Henry's shed his job as a restaurant boy and has become a full-time Mafia hood. He's still working for both Paulie and Jimmy, and has formed a friendhsip with another one of Jimmy's protogees, a violent Italian named Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci).

It is through Tommy that Henry meets his Jewish wife, Karen (Lorraine Bracco). At first the two don't hit it off too well, but their love blossoms ironically from a confrontation on the street and Karen's interest in Henry's life in the underworld. The two get married and eventually have two daughters.

Things start taking a turn for the worse when Henry and co start making a number of slip-ups. First, Tommy and Jimmy both kill a "made" man (whose actual death was shown at the beginning of the film and then revisited in detail later on), despite the fact that neither are "made" themselves (Jimmy can't get "made" because he's Irish but Tommy can and does, or so we think). After a business trip to Florida, Jimmy and Henry are sent to jail for a few years. Worst of all, Henry starts dealing and taking drugs, an activity that Paulie specifically ordered him not to do. For a while he is able to pull the drug business off behind Paulie's back, even getting Jimmy and Tommy involved. But, after a series of slip-ups, murders, crack-snortings, and an infamous airplane heist, the walls of Henry's dream world start caving in, and his only means of escape is the FBI...

GoodFellas is an exhillerating, witty, well-written film that is entertaining on all levels. The movie is a quilt of memorable scenes, from the tracking one-shot scene, the edgy "helecopters and tomato sause" scene, and the movie's ironic begining and its ironic end. The film never slows down. Scorsese's direction is, as always, brilliant, as is the use of music and the editing. All of these shine during the already mentioned scene in which Henry believes he's being persued by a helecopter. What also shines in that scene is the performance of Ray Liotta; his is the most entertaining performance in the film. He narriates with wit and remourse and plays his character with such energy that you can't take your eyes off of him. Joe Pesci, who won an Oscar for his performance, is also great. Of course, Robert De Niro goes without saying! Probably the second best performance in this film comes from Lorraine Bracco as Karen. She also narriates the film, and plays the many emotions of her character to perfection. If you want to see a really entertaining film that doesn't stick to formulas to get you going, definatley see GoodFellas!

© Vert A Go Go Reviews 2001