Goodfellas (1990)

“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” The film’s opening narration sums up the protagonist’s entire life in that one sentence. In Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese neither mythologizes the world of the Mafia nor condemns it morally. Instead, through the eyes of someone who lived inside it, he unfolds at breakneck speed how glamour and squalor are one and the same body.

What it’s about — Henry Hill, from errand boy to made man

The film follows the recollections of a real figure named Henry Hill (Ray Liotta). Having idolized the neighborhood gang since childhood, Henry sets foot in the organization as an errand boy and gradually becomes one of its own. Running with the coldly calculating veteran Jimmy (Robert De Niro) and the impulsive, violent Tommy (Joe Pesci), Henry tastes money, power, and dazzling nightlife. But as time passes the violence slips out of control and drugs creep in, and the once-solid friendship and glamorous life begin to collapse from within.

Direction — Experiencing the fall through long takes and editing

Scorsese’s direction is brimming with energy from start to finish. The character’s narration flows ceaselessly, era-defining pop and rock songs underscore every scene, and the camera never stops moving. The long take that follows Henry in through a nightclub’s back door, past the kitchen, all the way to a seat in front of the stage, without a single cut, is a masterful set piece that makes the audience pass directly through the world of privilege Henry enjoyed.

The film’s real flavor lies in its latter half. On the last day of Henry’s collapse, the editing grows faster and faster, the music cuts in nervously, and the entire frame turns frantic. The audience experiences Henry’s paranoia and anxiety almost physically. The structure of a film that begins so glamorously and ends so anxiously testifies, through its very form, to where the gangster’s life ultimately leads. The 146 minutes pass like an instant.

Performance — Joe Pesci flipping from a joke to a killing rage

Ray Liotta draws the audience into this world through Henry, who oscillates between allure and ruin. The process by which his giddy smile gradually turns into bloodshot anxiety is the film’s emotional axis. Robert De Niro adds a chilly gravity through Jimmy, a man of few words who calculates everything. Above all, the Tommy played by Joe Pesci is the explosive force of this film itself. His volatility, flipping from cracking a joke to a killing rage in an instant, sends a chill down your spine throughout, and Pesci won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for this role. Lorraine Bracco as Henry’s wife Karen is equally impressive. Through her gaze the film also charts another trajectory of falling, of a person seduced by the glamorous life and then crushed by its price.

What the film says — The bill that comes with easy glory

Goodfellas does not preach the wages of crime. Rather, after showing at length how exciting and seductive that life is, it reveals how that very allure devours a person. For Henry the gangster’s world was family and identity, and the moment he loses that world he is hurled into the very ordinary life he so despised. Through that final fall, the film calmly shows that easy glory always comes with a bill attached.

Ratings and reception

Goodfellas holds an 8.7/10 on IMDb, placing it among the very top of the gangster genre. Its Rotten Tomatoes freshness is 93% and its Metacritic score is 92 out of 100, marking a near-unanimous critical verdict. Along with Joe Pesci’s Supporting Actor win, it earned six Academy Award nominations. Since its release it has left its mark on countless crime films and dramas, becoming a touchstone that is invariably cited whenever Mafia stories are discussed.

Verdict

Goodfellas is the film that depicts the gangster’s life most honestly and most dynamically. The excitement of the glamorous opening and the frantic rush of the latter half toward catastrophe stand in vivid contrast within a single work. It is alluring enough to be misread as glamorizing crime, but that allure is precisely the trap the film sets. There is no reason to hesitate in giving four stars to a work where form and content interlock so precisely.

Recommended for

• Those who love crime films alive with fast editing and music
• Those who want to see the Mafia world through human eyes rather than myth
• Those who want to enjoy the ensemble acting of De Niro, Pesci, and Liotta