GoodFellas

Rating: 8/10 (7 September 2005)

Certainly it deserves five out of five stars, and certainly it is probably the most popular film from BAFTA winning, and Oscar and Golden Globe nominated director Martin Scorsese. Based on a true story, Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) admits (with narration) he always wanted to be a gangster ever since he could remember, so he started hanging out with the crime family gangsters in his Italian neighbourhood to try and get somewhere. Soon enough the boss Paul 'Paulie' Cicero, based on Lucchese mobster Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) lets him help his close associate James 'Jimmy' Conway (Robert De Niro) along with young Tommy DeVito (Oscar winning Joe Pesci). As they get older they have become the most well known and ruthless gangsters with billions of dollars of cargo passing through the airport, and many heists. Because Henry and Jimmy are both Irish they cannot become a "made man", but Tommy can. Henry's friends become increasingly daring and dangerous, with Jimmy hijacking trucks, and Tommy with an explosive temper and psychotic violent nature. Henry in the story also meets, falls for and marries Karen (Lorraine Bracco). There are many other things I could mention in the whole story, but that'll take ages, so I'll just say that Henry and Jimmy are caught and imprisoned at one point, Tommy murders "made man" Stacks Edwards (a very brief Samuel L. Jackson), and when he is made one is quite quickly murdered, and in the end of the film Henry drops his gangster identity and becomes a normal "schmuck". Also starring Frank Sivero as Frankie Carbone, Tony Darrow as Sonny Bunz, Dumb and Dumber's Mike Starr as Frenchy, Frank Vincent as Billy Batts, Chuck Low as Morris 'Morrie' Kessler, Catherine Scorsese (Martin's real mother) as Tommy's Mother, Frank DiLeo as Tuddy Cicero, comedian Henny Youngman as himself, Gina Mastrogiacomo as Janice Rossi, Charles Scorsese (Martin's real father) as Vinnie, Suzanne Shepherd as Karen's Mother, Debi Mazar as Sandy and Michael Imperioli as Spider. Pesci is the perfect and deserved Oscar winner for his brutal, psychotics and very convincing role, De Niro and Liotta are also very good in their roles, a very good film (seeing it again)! It was nominated the Oscars for Best Film Editing, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium and Best Picture, it won the BAFTA for Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film, and it was nominated for Best Cinematography, and it was nominated the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Screenplay. Robert De Niro number 2 on The 100 Greatest Movie Stars, he was also number 50 on The 100 Greatest Pop Culture Icons, and he was number 5 (along with Al Pacino) on The World's Greatest Actor, the film was number 55 on The 100 Greatest Scary Moments for the brilliant scene where Pesci seems to be getting madder at Liotta saying "How am I funny? (it's scary because you don't know where it's going, till Liotta realises it's a joke of course), and it was number 10 on The 100 Greatest Films. Very good!