Great characters, but no message

Rating: 5/10 (11 April 2013)

Goodfellas is a joy to watch. Joe Pesci is in his comfort zone playing a tetchy little New York Mafiosa hard man. De Niro almost takes a backseat to Pesci. Liotta, as raconteur, delivers the story pitch perfect.
So why only 5 out of 10 ("bing a bang")?
The characterisations are marvellous but the message is an empty bag. The message is merely that "might is right" and life is short. The bigger you are, the more friends you have, the more weight you can throw around. Well, we know that. We knew that when a nuke was dropped on Hiroshima.
There is no sincere message from the movie. There are plenty of lovable characters but nothing else to feed us. You get more, much more, from Allen's Broadway Danny Rose. From the Godfather you learn about the organisation of the underworld.
However, they say movies are more about character than plot. Maybe that applies to the message too. It's good. It's fun. But you don't learn anything from it other than a few syllables that every other kid at college would know. In Goodfellas, life is so simple it's makes me wonder why I bother to pay my bills.