Goodfellas depicts the rise and downfall of Henry Hill's mob career, and the demise of his way of life.

Rating: 10/10 (14 June 2015)

The movie, Goodfellas, is the true story of Henry Hill, a former American mobster. Henry (Ray Liotta) was born into a working class family in Brooklyn, New York. Henry knew from an early age that he wanted more out of life than simply struggling to make ends meet. When, as a teenager, he had the opportunity to run errands for the Lucchese crime family as a means of earning money, he immediately got a taste of the life he so desperately wanted to lead. Henry dropped out of school to begin working for the Lucchese crime family full-time. After his first arrest, Henry learned the most important rule of living life as a mobster: "Never rat out your friends, and always keep your mouth shut." Henry quickly made his way through the ranks of the Lucchese crime family, and became very successful in his new career. Henry eventually spends time in prison, and ends up getting involved in a side business of selling drugs, which went against the wishes of the Lucchese crime boss, Paulie (Paul Sorvino). In the end, Henry is forced to turn against his crime family, and leave the mob life that he always wanted to lead in order to save his own life. Goodfellas depicts the rise and downfall of Henry's mob career, and the demise of his way of life.
The theme of Goodfellas is a focus on the character development of Henry Hill, and his desire to live life as a rich and successful gangster. The storyline is presented as a linear flashback of Henry's life, narrated by Henry himself. Henry believed that "being a gangster was better than being the President of the United States." It was the only thing that he ever wanted to do. Henry believed that being a gangster would allow him to achieve the highest level of success that he valued most: respect. Henry wanted desperately to be "a somebody in a neighborhood full of nobodies." The desire to have the respect of those around him was Henry's motivation to become a gangster.
Henry admired the mob boss, Paulie, for the respect that he garnered – the respect that Henry so desperately wanted to attain. Henry began working at the cabstand and the Pizzeria that Paulie owned, and worked through the ranks of the Mob's organization, from parking cars, to making deliveries, to carrying out important tasks. Henry liked the respect he received from others in the neighborhood due to his association with top gangsters. He stated, "People looked at me differently, and they knew I was with somebody. I didn't have to wait in line at the bakery on Sunday morningthe owner knew who I was, and no matter how many people were in line, I was taken care of first." Henry's motivation was the respect that he earned in being a gangster.
Henry's compulsive desire for money, social status, and success led him to start a side business of drug dealing, which was something that Paulie strictly forbade, and went against his "family." Eventually, Henry gets busted for dealing drugs, and the police have enough evidence of his involvement with drug dealing that he is looking at a life sentence in prison with no parole. Paulie becomes angry because Henry had lied to him and disobeyed his command to stop the drug business. Paulie tells Henry that he has to turn his back on him, meaning that his relationship with the Lucchese crime family is over. Knowing that he, Karen, and their children are marked targets, Henry saw no other choice but to break his trust with the Lucchese crime family and enter the witness protection program so he could divulge information about his dealings with the mob. If he didn't, Henry knew it would just be a matter of time before he and his family were killed. In the end, Henry lost his trust with the people he had worked with for a lifetime, and was forced to turn his back on them, and more importantly, the life he loved the most. He was forced to break the most important rule in the life of a mobster – never rat out your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.
The use of cinematic techniques help to define Henry's character throughout the movie, and support the theme of the rise and fall of Henry's mob career. Director, Martin Scorsese, used unique camera angles to show the development of Henry's character, and the rise of Henry's mobster status. In the first scene that reveals an adult Henry, the camera angle is shooting Henry from the bottom, looking upward, giving Henry the appearance that he is larger than life, and has been raised to mobster status. Another cinematic technique used to further develop Henry's character is through the viewer gaining insight into Henry's internal actions. The entire film is told through Henry's perspective, and the viewer has insight into Henry's deepest thoughts about his own actions and the actions of those around him.
Goodfellas is a study in how Henry's greed and desire for status and respect ultimately leads to his downfall. For Henry, even harder than breaking trust and turning against his crime family, was the loss of the way of life he had become so accustomed to, as Henry states in the final scene:
The hardest thing for me was to have to leave the life. I still love the lifeAnd now, it's all over.There's no action – I have to wait around like everyone else I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.
Henry lost everything he had ever wanted out of life. As the movie fades, you see the end result of Henry's deal with the witness protection program – living in suburbia, he is now forced to live the boring life of the people he used to mock – the life of a schnook.