Cinematic genius

Rating: 10/10 (28 August 2013)

Sure this is a gangster movie and in the genre of gangster movies this stands as one of the greatest of all time. But I think this movie holds that title even out of its genre. I think this is one of the greatest movies of all time. From realistic characters and some of the finest acting in movies, to an epic story full of humor/suspense/drama/tragedy, the colorful dialog that feels so organic you wouldn't be able to tell the actors are reciting lines from a script and the most amazing part of it all is the fact that this all actually happened. I can't help but feel more drawn into movies that are based off real events. Sure its a movie but its telling a real story that I haven't heard before, I don't know who lives and dies in this story and because these characters represent real people I can't help but think when someone dies in the movie its possible that person they are playing was actually killed in real life. And that makes me care about the characters in the movie so much more.
This is an example of a gangster movie that doesn't need action to be a good a movie. There aren't crazy shoot outs and explosions going off every 5 minutes, its the mob. The real mob... the "cut your throat in your sleep quietly" mob. Every aspect of the movie was done so well. The actors play their roles perfectly, the director shot this movie to make every scene an amazingly epic visual spectacle for the audience, the writer drenched every part of this story with realistic human emotion and Henry Hill got to tell his story through an amazing piece of cinema.
Realism is by far this movies best aspect. The story is being told by Henry Hill and the movie portrayed the actual events from the actual point of view it was lived from. In this movie you won't know anything Henry Hill doesn't know. For example towards the end (not a spoiler don't worry) Henry Hill's wife was told to go into a shop and pick up a dress, she felt as if she was going to walk into a trap and get whacked. So she left in hurry, we aren't told whether she was actually going to get whacked... we aren't shown a piece of evidence other than there are people in that store and they stopped talking the second she walked up. We don't know if it was actually going to happen, because the real Henry Hill didn't know if it was actually going to happen. That is realism, that is a movie that stays true to the person's point of view.
There are tons of those tiny little details like that in the movie. And while they maybe minor details to the story, they actually show the true cinematic genius that went into this absolutely amazing movie.