If you haven't seen it...

Rating: 10/10 (6 November 1998)

...you should be shot! This is the ultimate mob movie, and it really lives up to its tagline of "three decades of life in the Mafia". Instead of being a standard, point-A to point-B kinda movie, Goodfellas really gives you the sense that you're watching someone's life unfold. Just like in real life, characters move in and out of Henry's life, appearing and disappearing from view at random points in time. We are treated to some "precious moments" that might not help advance the very loose plot, but give us glimpses in Henry's life. For example, the long steadicam shot as Henry walks his future wife Karen into the Copacabana, the famous "funny" sequence, and the scene where Tommy's mother cooks the guy's dinner while they have a body in the trunk really give you a sense that these are REAL people, not the stereotypes in fedoras and slick suits that you often see in gangster pictures. I could write for hours about this film, but I don't know if you'd want to read all that.