The masters at work

Rating: 10/10 (12 April 2003)

Goodfellas shows that you can put great actors and a great director together and make it work,even more so:Make a Masterpiece!
My favorite director Martin Scorsese is teamed up with two of my favorite actors:Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. Add to that a great script,great dialogues and beautiful music and you get an all-time classic.The first scene of the movie shows that it won't be always easy to watch,but the violence is never over the top in this movie,although it is often gruesome.But then,Goodfellas isn't a movie about a tea party! The way that Scorsese mixes the scenes with period music is absolutely brilliant.He did it in Mean Streets and would do it again in his other Gangster Classic:Casino. Just look and listen when the scene comes up in which De Niro and Pesci brutally kick and punch a Maffia hood almost to his death.The song Atlantis by Donovan makes the scene even better and gives it an extra dimension.
The story is well-known so I won't tell that,although it is very well put together and has no loose ends. Joe Pesci plays like never before,he only reached this same divine level in Casino and De Niro is brilliant as always.Ray Liotta is also very good here and it is a shame that he never surpassed or even reached the same level ever again.
Although I think that the follow up,Casino,is an even better picture Goodfellas remains an all-time classic and it is a shame that it never won the Oscar(Best Picture or Best Director!!). But then,most classics don't! 10/10