Review: Goodfellas

For my Valentine's Day movie review, we have a syrupy-sweet romantic comedy.  Nope, not here.  How about a tragic romance?  No again.  Instead, I present you my thoughts on Goodfellas.

Plot:  Based on a true story, Goodfellas follows the rise and fall of Henry Hill, a small time gangster in 1960's and 70's New York, along with his friends Jimmy Conway and Tommy De Vito.  Jimmy and Tommy, more unstable and more ambitious than Henry, gradually climb the ladder from petty crime to bigger and more violent ventures.  After an extended jail sentence, Henry begins to sneak around the back of the local mob boss, Paulie Cicero, venturing into the drug trade and starting on the slippery slope to his downfall.  

I also liked the IMDB summary provided by Dustin B.  

The lowly, blue-collar side of New York's Italian mafia is explored in this crime biopic of wiseguy Henry Hill. As he makes his way from strapping young petty criminal, to big-time thief, to middle-aged cocaine addict and dealer, the film explores in detail the rules and traditions of organized crime. Watching the rise and fall of Hill and his two counterparts, the slick jack-of-all-trades criminal Jimmy Conway and the brutish, intimidating Tommy DeVito, this true story realistically explores the core, blue-collar part of the mob. 

A perfect date movie, right?  

I like crime movies, but this one was so-so for me.  I dunno, I liked it but I don't think it's one for the shelf.  It's definitely one to see, though.  There's just so many quotes that come from this movie!  Most notably the famous " I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh?" scene, which has been referenced by everything from Hannah Montana to MST3K.  But the narration and some of the camera work too have been referenced and imitated by movies to follow.  I guess that's really the biggest reason to see it, to see the starting point for so many movies to follow.

For the acting, overall it's very solid.  Robert DeNiro is a little heavy handed, but that's been known to happen.  I still think my favorite movie of his is The Godfather II, but his Jimmy is another memorable character.  Ray Liota's transformation from wide-eyed petty crook to paranoid drug addict is very well done.  Henry has an innocence and often tries to play mediator between regular people and his more violent acquaintances, but at the same time, fits the darker world there, like when he beats up Karen's neighbor.  Liotta does a very good job balancing the two.  And it is his narration which holds the movie together.  As a negative note, I do have to say, I don't like his laugh.  Nothing he can help, I know, but it just bugged me...  But it's Tony DeVito, Joe Pesci's character, he of the "Am I funny?" fame, who's really, really worth watching.  I really liked the scenes with Spider, especially the second one.  The way he doesn't react at first is colder, scarier, creepier than some of his other outbursts.

Like Scorsese's other crime movies, this isn't an 'upper' of a movie (think The Departed).  The mafia and violence isn't glamorized. It starts out that way, as Henry starts out as a teenager and twenty-something.  He has backstage passes to clubs, the airport is "just like Citibank," and anything they want, they take.  But as Henry ages and sees more of The Business, you get to see as well how dirty it all is, and how dirty he becomes.  Especially by the end, when he's paranoid and strung out... certainly not an image to aspire to.

Thinking about it, I think there needs to be at least one or two relatively sane characters in the dark movies I like.  Here, I just didn't like any of the characters enough to want to revisit them often.  Violent psychopaths, uncharismatic drug addicts, murderous thugs... just nothing drawing me back to this world again.  I think that's really why I don't see this one on my shelf anytime soon.

Overall:  3 of 5.  I liked it, and it's well done, but not one for my shelf.  I liked The Departed and the Godfather trilogy better for my serious gang movies :)  Still, it's very well done, well acted, and if nothing else, you need to watch it to see the original source of so many pop culture references.