one of the more important films of our time

Rating: 10/10 (5 April 2009)

When he was asked to name the best films of the 1990s, film critic Roger Ebert not only ranked Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" as the best next to "Fargo" (1996) but also labeled it "the best mob movie ever." A friend of Scorsese's, Ebert also labeled the filmmaker as the finest director in the United States today. To me, "Goodfellas" is not the best film about organized crime. That reward goes to "The Godfather" (1972). But if there ever was a film to replace "The Godfather" (1972) as the best mafia movie, "Goodfellas" would be it.
"Goodfellas" is one of those rare cases where a true story about violence and ferocity is adapted for the screen but without bringing it to a glorious sense like "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962). The said 60s film took a tale of heroism mixed with narcissistic violence to create a sweeping epic. What Scorsese does is take the dark plot of the underworld and the mafia and make it look exactly like what it was and still is today. It is a fabulous retelling of the story of Henry Hill, a part-Italian kid who grew up amongst the mobsters and sought to become one of them.
Unlike other mob movies, "Goodfellas" does not make heroes or role models out of its characters. The movie centers around the people of the mafia underworld and avoids the civilians who would ultimately become victims of them and their ways. Instead, Scorsese and co-screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi make cruel and dislikable characters and masterfully command the cast into representing them. Most particularly is the character played by Joe Pesci. The character, again based on a real-life person, is like a tender human explosive. Just touch the surface of it and it goes off, tearing or blowing apart anything that provokes it. Pesci's character is the kind of man who if you insult him verbally, even as a joke, he will beat you half to death or just whip out his gun and empty it into your heart and then sit down and finish whatever he was doing in the first place and not shed a tear or let out a sigh of regret over your mangled remains. Like a wild animal, he is unpredictable and cannot be controlled; only put down. And the sickening thing is that Robert De Niro's character is actually fond of this monstrosity of a man. We only learn the bad sides of these men; not their good sides, for they probably lost it all when they joined the mafia. We see them cheat on their spouses, murder people in broad daylight, traffic drugs, destroy property, and again, they do it for their own satisfaction. There's no morality, not even among themselves. The movie opens with a brutal scene of what these men do and yet the Ray Liotta character immediately states afterward: "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United Statesit was there that I knew that I belonged."
This is a brutal and savage world these men lived in and Martin Scorsese excellently brings this back to screen to give us a new impression of the mafia and reminds us that these kind of people still exist today and are not heroes or images for civilized people not even in the vaguest sense. In regards to the cast, it is perfect. Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci (who won an Oscar for his performance) were quintessentially cast in their roles. The only part I thought was wrongly developed was Lorraine Bracco's character. I just felt the character was either too over the top or Bracco overacted a little, but this is a forgivable weakness and it's hardly a weakness at all. There is also the two-and-a-half-hour running time, which I felt was just a little too long. But these few minor flaws aside, "Goodfellas" is certainly one of the most important films of the past twenty years in an era where Hollywood seems to have lost its motivation for films beyond the conventional range.