As good as those fellas are...I just don't get it

Rating: 6/10 (29 May 2007)

I have nothing against gangster films and I love Deniro, and Liotta and Pesci...in moderation...The Godfather were brilliant films and I finally made my way around to seeing the infamously talked about 'Goodfellas.' I don't get it. I'll take the heat from any fans and I know there are scores of them...Goodfellas was average at best and simply a trashy look at a mobster from childhood to his end in the mob with some decent but over the top performance, brutally gratuitous language and violence. I suppose in some circles that equivalents to a great film but I need far more. I mean even the story has little depth to it and it's more or less an extended episode of The Sopranos without the character depth. I suppose after having the film hyped for years and hearing about the 'classic' I had high expectations but for me it was run of the mill, annoyingly loud and abrasive but with some good direction. Scorsese knows how to make an epic from beginning to end starting the film in the 50's and 60's and taking it all the way to the mid 80's is a challenge and he does it flawlessly. The gritty underworld, the dark lighting, the facial expressions all very good but put to a pointless story and sub par characters unfortunately.
I finally know now why Ray Liotta is still around and still gets parts because I always found him a little obnoxious in roles and I never realized he single handedly headlined Goodfellas and is great at it. His character might be the only one in the film given any depth considering he is the narrator and focus of the film. Disgustingly Liotta got no nomination that year which is absurd because if this film deserved anything (which I don't think it did) Liotta's role was it. Robert Deniro commonly gets credit for the film as being the headliner which is also a bit absurd. He might be the big name for the film but his role was small. He didn't make a significant part in the film until a good hour into it and his role was small but he still certainly brought his Deniro class and style to the ensemble. I think they would have done better to focus more on his character and his relationship with Liotta's character. They had good chemistry but just when you wanted to see more...they moved on to something else. Joe Pesci was over the top insane, downright disturbed Tommy Devito. His performance in this film is legendary "Oh you think I'm a clown?" but to be perfectly honest he was ridiculous. His performance wasn't sincere or believable and he was downright annoying. He was loud and abrasive and his barrage of gratuitous language actually made the film less watchable and I am not against the use of four letter words in film but his was too much. Lorraine Bracco was quite good in her pre-Soprano role as Liotta's wife Karen who sticks with him through pretty much everything and has some powerfully emotional swings throughout the film. Paul Sorvino is good as the head of the mob family, Paulie, but he doesn't make an impact. You don't really believe anyone would respect him. He's quiet and laid back and basically hiding throughout most of the film. At least with Brando's Godfather he was an image, an icon, something you just were in awe of. The cast all work well together but their characters are so thinly written you just don't give a damn about a single one of them except maybe a little for Liotta's Jimmy Conway.
I get that I'm in a severe minority speaking this way about this film and that director Martin Scorsese is like a god to some but I just didn't seem the talent in this film. Scorsese showed talent in The Departed and the cast was a million times better than Goodfellas and deserved all of it's acclaim but I personally think Goodfellas is more of a non-thinking man's mob movie where bloody brutal kills and 1000 times hearing the 'F' word would prompt a dull chuckle as though the audience were 10. No I am not trying to insult anyone I was just severely disappointed by this film after having expected a brilliant classic which I will say hands down is not the case. I suppose if you like the crime genre or moreso the gangster drama than you must see Goodfellas anyways but I can promise you there is FAR better out there than this average, poorly written film. 6/10