Among Scorsese's best and a true classic

Rating: 10/10 (30 June 2002)

Goodfellas is without a doubt one of the best gangster films of all time, if not THE best. I find it hard to watch a gangster movie without likening and comparing it to Goodfellas in more than one fashion; ranging from script, musical score, acting and screenplay - and most of the time I have to admit, none of them come near to Goodfellas.
You couldn't have picked a better director than Scorsese to do this film and his exquisite and rightly respected directing skills are on full show as he transforms this age-old clichÃ© genre into a real classic film where the audience is captivated from start to finish. The acting is superb and Liotta as Henry Hill puts in possibly his lifetime best performance and with Joe Pesci as his side-kick you've got an extremely talented actor who never fails to either make you laugh (whut, am I a clown?) or make you despise him (the first scene) at the click of a finger; magic - in a word. To be honest, there are talented actors left, right and center in Goodfellas.
The script itself is masterful in picking up the story halfway through the movie before jetting back to the "proper" starting point of a film to show you what's happened up to the point where the film picks up. It's sort of hard to follow and pleasantly surprising when you see it first time but becomes crystal clear towards the end and when you watch it again it all makes full and complete sense.
My only quam with Goodfellas is that in places it is often drawn out and the film itself is very long, however, don't let this deduct from the film's brilliance as is seen from The Godfather movies. Goodfellas is a beautifully directed and acted masterpiece and as with all gangster movies, the language and extremely explicit and gory violence comes at a thick and fast pace. However, the fact that Goodfellas is high up in the top 250 movies is testament to this film's true brilliance.
Certainly one for the collection and certainly one worth respect. 10/10