Understandbly a classic, misunderstandably miserable

Rating: 5/10 (29 March 2018)

This week I watched Martin Scorcese's Goodfellas (1990). I like Scorcese as a director. That being said I didn't actually care for the movie at all. Sometimes I feel like directors cross lines that for the good of society shouldn't be crossed. This movie crossed those lines. I think it was a little more gorey than it could have been. However, the gore isn't my issue. My issue was the repeated violence against women. I get that the story is being told, but I think there are other ways the information could have been conveyed. I think that the violence against the women in this movie is crossing a line and somewhat revelatory and never punished giving male viewers a sense that this is acceptable behavior to some level. It is also celebrated that the protagonist violates his monogamous commitment and is again condoned for having multiple girlfriends. I know that this isn't a family friendly movie - I get that, but I think that there should have been some real recourse for his behaviors or some reason that the audience wouldn't cheer him on for doing this. Now that my opinions are out of the way I will look at this movie from an analytical perspective in regards to the point, perspective, plot, and payoff. The point of the film was to portray the true story of a man gone gangster in the 70s, to show his life and to tell his story. This movie did an excellent job of that. The characters were built well as was the storyline. The perspective of the film was actually a dual perspective. Most of the story was told from the perspective of a boy who volunteered to join the mob and grew up living as first an inductee and then a mobster. The next perspective was that of his wife Karen as she narrates small parts of her perspective throughout the film. The plot was (as somewhat mentioned earlier) about a boy gone mobster who deals with mob life and ends up making a crucial life or death decision in the end. The payoff was probably one of the better parts of the film which was a little too long in my opinion causing the payoff to feel abrupt and out of place. All in all I can see why the film is a classic -- it does a good job telling the story and telling it well and I'm glad to have seen it. That being said I hope I never watch it again.