Goodfellas (1990)

Ok, funny story — I think it was more than 10 years ago, but a bunch of us were going to Mohegan Sun, and we met up at someone’s house. Goodfellas was on for some reason, so I watched the first 30 mins or so, and I really liked it. I would have watched more, but we were ready to go. I figured oh well, I will definitely have to rent and watch the rest of this amazing film the following week. Um, well, the best laid plans can often go awry. It’s been over 10 years, and I still hadn’t gotten around to watching it. Is that ridiculous? Yeah, I admit that openly. I don’t have any good excuses, but you gotta admit it isn’t hard to get distracted with life, other people’s rental quests taking priority, etc. This past week, Goodfellas happened to be playing on cable, so it was fate.

Hey, this Martin Scorsese guy is a good director — I think he’s got a great future ahead of him. 🙂 This film is, just, wow. Based on a book by Nicholas Pileggi called Wiseguy, it’s the story of Henry Hill, initially a young kid who becomes enamored of the Italian Mafia guys who live and run his Brooklyn neighborhood. He begins to run with them, ingratiating himself with them, and truly living the life within “the Family.”

A huge cast of characters, with a pretty famous set of actors and actresses. Among others, the film features:

• Robert De Niro
• Ray Liotta
• Joe Pesci
• Lorraine Bracco
• Paul Sorvino
• Tony Darrow
• Debi Mazar
• Michael Imperioli
• Tony Sirico
• Illeana Douglas
• Samuel L. Jackson
• Vincent Pastore

For the one other person on the planet who hasn’t seen the film, I’ll discuss the film the film below. Mild spoilers if you haven’t seen it yet:

Ray Liotta’s character (Henry Hill) is a small time NYC mobster who gets deeper in with the Lucchese crime family between the mid-1950s to 1980. Hill helps to pull off bigger and bigger jobs, bringing up him up higher within the family. Within the crime family, he is especially close to the head of the family Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino), and Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci.) As he gets deeper and deeper over the years, Henry becomes a darker individual, pretty comfortable with murders and other crimes. He gets married to Lorraine Bracco’s character Karen. I found Karen’s transformation the most interesting. For someone who is initially disgusted with the other Mob wives and questions Henry’s lifestyle, but becomes enamored of the trappings of Mob life — the money, the houses, etc.

So more than 10 years later, I’ve finally finished watching Goodfellas. I don’t have a reasonable excuse for not watching it all this time, but that’s what happened.

Goodfellas (1990)