Not GreatFellas, but Good!

Watched GoodFellas last night. And that seems to say a lot.

One of the many good films in Martin Scorsese's repertoire, GoodFellas is a movie with class. Well, at least for the time it was made in.

A simple movie about three gangsters and their rise and fall. Really, that is all the movie is about. But as Scorsese always does, he packs so much into just the rise and fall of these three gangsters, that by the time you are done watching the movie, you are panting and trying to catch up with your elusive breath.

Ray Liotta plays Henry Hill, a boy from a simple family who leaves behind family, education and any semblance of his middle class neighbourhood because 'he always wanted to be a gangster'. He works his way into the Lucchese crime family and meets Jimmy, played by Robert De Niro, who takes Harry on as his protege. Along with Harry is Tommy, played by Joe Pesci, who is also being groomed by the family but without grooming his temper. Together these three, wreck havoc, pile on the money and good times as they hijack truck after truck of goodies.

Along the way Harry marries, starts a family, takes on a mistress, goes to jail, deals in drugs and inevitably deals out his own downfall. As the viewer, though the rise and fall may be predictable after a certain point in the movie, it is the various characters so cleverly etched out that hold the viewers attention. The movie definitely does not ride on the shoulders of the main character.

Technically the movie is awesome but the point I really took home were the quirks each character had. For example, Henry´s high pitched, open mouthed laugh was so irritating it stayed on long after the movie was over.
Robert De Niro´s hairstyle, Joe Pesci with his use of the word Fuck. (Trivia alert This film ranks ninth in the list of films which use the word Fuck over 250 times)

GoodFellas is a good Saturday night movie watch. Buy it, keep it in your library as part of your Scorsese collection. It is worth it.