When people talk to me about movies, I have this tendency to remember my favoraite movie in the same genre. So the other day me and 3 of my friends just sat down and discussed the best in all the genres. First we started in fantasy and the winner hands down was Lord of the Rings and then we went to gangster genre, Godfather was the obvious choice and then my friend said Goodfellas . I had heard of the movie but never got down to see it, so I went and rented the movie. The next thing I know, I have gone to a music store and bought the VCD. In case you don’t get my drift, this movie is AWESOME!
Goodfellas is a movie directed by Martin Scorsese who has another classic, “Raging Bull” starring Robert De Niro under his belt. The movie’s main cast consists of Ray Liotta playing the role of Henry, De Niro playing the role of James Conway better known as Jimmy and Joe Pesci playing the role of Tommy. The movie has many other memorable characters but they are too many to mention here.
The beginning of the movie itself is awesome. You have Jimmy, Tommy and Henry going in a car and they hear voices from the trunk. They get out and open the trunk and see that the guy they just “whacked” is still alive. Tommy takes a knife and stabs him continuously and Jimmy shoots the entire magazine into him. Jimmy is witnessing all this and says ”As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster.’’ Superlative stuff! Then begins the movie.
Flashback to the time when Henry was a kid. He is fascinated by the way the gangsters live their life and he manages to get a job at the place where the gangsters used to hang around and soon he rises up the ladder and becomes a partner of Jimmy and Tommy. He is also trusted a lot by Polly who is the head honcho of the “Gangster Family”. We are shown glimpses of the extravagant life that these guys live. Tipping 100 dollars, carrying wads of cash, huge apartments, fast cars, guns, the works. Then during one of the “jobs” Henry messes with the wrong guy and finds himself in the prison with many other of his friends including Polly. That’s when he gets into the wrong business – the drugs and narcotics business. Then begins a sequence of events which destroy the gangsters and his life. I will stop there as revealing the plot will not make you watch the movie which I definitely want you too!
Ray Liotta has given a performance which he will never better in his life. He has given a very powerful performance and probably he is the only guy in the film you might feel sorry for. The way he laughs in the movie also adds to his performance. The laugh is so “gangster like”. The other thing that struck me about his performance is his transformation after getting into the narcotics business. It’s so real. You have to see it to know it.
Joe Pesci won the Oscar for this movie for the best supporting actor. Another performance which will not be surpassed by him. He is the foul mouthed and short tempered gangster. He was by far my favorite and most interesting character in the movie. The scene where he tells Henry “But, I’m funny how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I’m here to fuc*in’ amuse you?” was a really superb scene and Pesci was wonderful in that. Needless to say, Pesci’s character shoots lots of bullet and uses a lot of “F” words.
Robert De Niro? What do you want me to say ? It is Robert De Niro! Wonderful as always. De Nero’s character is opposite to that of Pesci’s character. He is the calm, calculative man. He kills almost all his “friends” when he makes big heist and wants to cut off all the “links” pointing towards him. The scenes where he interacts with Henry are probably his best scenes.
There are some scenes in this movie which will remain in my memory for ever. The Foul mouthed Tommy goes to the honchos house thinking that he is going to be made( Sort of a promotion) and when he goes into a room and realizes that he is going to be killed, all he says is , “Oh, No” !. Then there is the other scene where Henry goes and beats up the guy who teases his girlfriend! Then there is the other scene where you are shown how Jimmy got rid of his friends who were linked with his big robbery. They first show 2 bodies in the garbage processing machine, then the dead bodies in the car, the dead body in the meat van. Oh, this movie is such a master piece.
I don’t usually do this in my movie reviews, but this movie has so many cool and good dialogues. I would like to share a couple with you.
Henry - You know, we always called each other Goodfellas. Like, you’d say to somebody: ’’You’re gonna like this guy; he’s all right. He’s a goodfella. He’s one of us.’’ You understand? We were Goodfellas, wiseguys.”
Tommy - He said, ’’No, you’re gonna tell me something today, tough guy.’’ I said, ’’All right, I’ll tell you something: go fuc* your mother!’’
There are too many of such lines too tell. If you want more, M2M me and I will send you more or maybe post them in the comments section.
Move over Godfather, there’s new number one in rahul’s list.