"Goodfellas" is Director Martin Scorsese's contribution to the gangster genre. It concerns itself with an inside look at a crime family in New York City. Much like the original gangster movies starring James Cagney and Paul Muni, it showed the rise and fall of the main characters.

Ray Liotta plays the protagonist, and the movie mainly follows his viewpoint, which possibly makes it more hard-hitting since he basically plays a milquetoast in this graphic story of modern day hoodlums. Oddly, Liotta is cast as an Irish thug, Henry Hill who can never be a true member of the Mob. Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci play Italians/Sicilians and do all the heavy lifting in this movie. Both are violent characters and will do whatever it takes to stay on top. Pesci, with his in-your-face style, and DeNiro, behind the scenes. Of the two, I found Robert DeNiro's sneaky methods more scary than Joe's overt violence.

Any illusions I ever had of the glamour of being a gangster were completely shattered by this movie, after viewing several killings and some dozens of bodies, artfully concealed in various places. The soundtrack sets the time of the scenes varying from the early sixties through the seventies. The high point of the film was Robert DeNiro's performance, which is the best I've seen from that actor.

The only defect I noticed was a little too much time was spent on Liotta: his problems with his girlfriends and wife, his drug addiction, drug sales, and resulting paranoia. This emphasis made the movie a bit slow. I would have rather seen more of Pesci and DeNiro's activities. Overall, I would give this a 5-star rating because it is the best gangster flick since Jimmy Cagney!

Folks who like this movie will also like "Casino", "Murder, Incorporated", "Scarface", and "Mobsters".



Recommended: Yes