Trash. Utter trash.

Rating: 1/10 (9 August 2004)

Goodfellas makes a strong case for itself as the most overrated movie of the 80s or any decade. Never in my life have I encountered a film less deserving of its critical and popular accolades. After watching it for the second time recently (to make sure my impression from a viewing years earlier was accurate), I feel every person involved in the picture, and particularly Martin Scorsese, deserves to be punished severely for inflicting Goodfellas upon me.
Goodfellas has absolutely nothing to offer. It has neither the wisdom nor the compassion to say or reveal anything about life or human beings. Anyway, Goodfellas is not interested in that. It just wants to be smart, hip, and funny. With such lofty goals, it's a wonder this entire star-studded cast of actors and filmmakers fell so very, very short.
Goodfellas is not smart. It is not intelligent enough to understand what it think it portrays on an individual or larger basis. It does not somehow explain or explore the mob psyche, the existence of organized crime in America, or anything else for that matter. Despite the fact that it is taken from actual events and people, it seems to desire no contact with reality.
Goodfellas is not hip. Apparently Martin Scorsese was not aware that there is nothing less cool than trying hard to be cool. Goodfellas is full of flashy camera moves, tough looking guys in swank suits, and more fast, colloquial dialogue than you could beat out of Dashiell Hammett, but none of it adds up to anything but slime. Yes, that's right: slime. Goodfellas is so obnoxious you want to take a magical eraser and scrub each of its characters back into the pure white on the page from which they sprang. Is this an honorable aim for a film? To make you hate its characters, to make you hate its voice? Let me be the one to say that cynicism is generally a good cover for laziness, and as an approach to life it is one step above nihilism. Real cynicism has no place in art.
Goodfellas is not funny. A complete lack of respect for human life is not a secret recipe for brilliant ironic comedy. It is disgusting, really, and those who laugh reserve a spot for themselves in the grime between the cracks under the bottom of the barrel of good humor.
The performances in Goodfellas, much lauded, are ridiculously one-sided. How wonderful they managed to span the chasm between looking tough and looking smug - all except for Ray Liotta who has to do the balancing act between being paranoid and annoyed. Bravo.
Of note is Scorsese's choice to play pop music over 95 percent of the film, presumably so that we have something to listen to while we are busy ignoring his movie.
Goodfellas is trash. Utter trash. The only thing I took out of it is that it is unwise to let a gangster stand behind you.