The Gangster Film To Beat

Rating: 10/10 (20 July 2003)

"As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster."
I remember reading Roger Ebert's review of "Gangs of New York" and though his review of the film was biased, he mentions how GoodFellas was a classic in point of direction and of characters. As I recall, people have mention that "The Godfather" is the best crime film ever made, but I disagree; "The Godfather" was a film that showed the consequences of people in organize crime or in a organization, but not GoodFellas. GoodFellas shows the exciting sides of people in the mafia, where they would go to bars, dinners, and laugh at America and those who were inferior to them.
GoodFellas is a story about a young Irishman name Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta as the older version) who every night sees the mobsters hanging on the other side of the street where he sees them park their cars in the middle of the streets, play cards and play their music all night without anybody complaining. The leader of the mafia is Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) who is reclusive towards the neighborhood, sure people have heard of him, but he doesn't like people watching him and yet Henry himself lies to his parents when he decides to work for Paul and his mafia and is finally notice in the neighborhood, though his father doesn't approve, his dad beats Henry a couple of times. But does that stop him? No.
Years later, Henry grows up (Ray Liotta now) and is enjoying what he is actually doing. He steals and kills like the rest of the gangsters in order to make ends meat instead of working nine-to-five jobs for stupid paychecks.
During the film we encounter a group of characters in the film that not only work for Henry, but also change the face in cinema history. Jimmy "The Gent" Conway (Robert De Niro) is the rebel that cheers for the bad guys in the movie and has been in jail when he was twelve for stealing. In the film, Henry narrates that Jimmy "enjoys" stealing and throughout the film, De Niro does make his presence where if you see his face, show him some respect. Another character in the film is Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) whose reputation is more than being in the mafia, but actually has a wild temper when somebody makes him mad. In one scene at a party, Tommy is embarrassed by the fact that the owner of the restaurant wants him to pay the tab of $7,000, and yet beats the hell out of the waiter proving that you can't mess with a crew of the mafia, no matter what the rank is.
There's another character in the story that is also a narrator, and the character is Karen (Lorraine Bracco), who was pressure to go out with Henry on a double date so that way Tommy can bang the girl of his dreams. In one scene she is stood up by Henry and tells Tommy to go after her and after embarrassing Henry in front of the mafia on the streets, Karen goes out with Henry on a single date where she doesn't what he does. Later during the film, she finds out that he's in the mob and fears that she will lose him.
A lot of things happen during the film; a made man is killed, Henry cheats on his wife and goes to jail, a money heist takes place, half of Jimmy's mafia gets whacked and a supporting character gets killed.
With a great soundtrack and a great storyline, GoodFellas proves that cheering for the bad guys is a good thing after all.