Goodfellas (1990) * * * *

Directed by:  Martin Scorsese

Starring:  Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Paul Sorvino, Lorraine Bracco, Debi Mazar, Samuel L. Jackson

Very few films are as vibrant as Goodfellas, which depicts the life of the late mobster Henry Hill (Liotta) and told in such intimate detail that we feel like insiders.    Hill takes us through a tour of his life as a successful gangster who later turns FBI informant when he falls out of favor with his bosses.     Liotta, who provides ample voiceover narration as well, does so in proud, almost giddy fashion.     "To many of us, there was no other way to live," he says,  "We were movie stars with muscle.   Everything was ours for the taking."     We may not necessarily approve of the actions of these mobsters, but we understand how and why things must be done.     The mob code relies heavily on respect, a certain level of honor among thieves, and accountability when someone is wronged or does the wronging.    

We also see the world of a mobster's wife through the eyes of Henry's wife Karen (Bracco), who doesn't have any friends outside of other mob wives and endures Henry's infidelities and trespasses because she has money at her disposal and an affluent life.     Henry's shortcomings are a small price to pay for her at first, but soon Henry's involvement in drug trafficking threatens to end their lives as they know them.     Perhaps Karen got hooked on Henry when he pistol-whipped her male friend who tried to assault her and told her to stash the gun.     "It turned me on," she confesses as she holds the bloody gun in her hand.    That was all of the justification she needed to marry a guy who said he was "in construction", but was also able to get a front row table specially brought out to him in a sold-out Copacabana.  She knew he wouldn't be wearing many hardhats.

Scorsese introduces many characters and subplots, but we are never confused or missing any key information.     Associates and friends come and go, either by getting jailed or killed, but guys like Henry simply move on to the next score.    Henry works for Jimmy Conway (DeNiro), a master thief who shakes hands and doles out money like a politician running for office.    DeNiro takes Henry under his wing at a young age and shows Henry the ropes.     "All of my life, I never wanted to be anything but a gangster," Henry says.    Getting to hang around guys like Jimmy made the decision to be a gangster easy for him.     Henry also befriends Tommy, who would grow up to be played by Joe Pesci (in his Oscar-winning performance) as a hothead whose violent streak flashes out of control almost without warning.     One minute, he's laughing and joking with a crowd and the next he's shooting at a lowly underling who forgot to serve him the drink he ordered.      Pesci is foul-mouthed, colorful, and invests Tommy with sadly tragic undertones.    We know his temper will get him into serious trouble one day, but we just don't know when.     The beginning of the end for Tommy comes when he kills a "made guy" (a high-ranking mobster who can't be touched without permission) for insulting him at a party.  

Goodfellas is certainly not an all-out lovefest being thrown for mobsters.    Scorsese sees that all good things must come to an end.   Greed and, for Henry, getting hooked on the cocaine he's trafficking, is the recipe for Henry's downfall, which takes Jimmy and mob boss Paul Cicero (Sorvino) down with him.     Sorvino, with his large build and no-nonsense demeanor, rules the screen with utmost authority.     His performance is perhaps the most underrated in a film full of great ones.    When he advises Henry to move back in with his wife after a fight over one of his infidelities, we sense this is not a man who will ask twice, or that he is even asking in the first place.  

The price to pay for the good life the mobsters lead is that it comes with a limited shelf life.    Sooner or later, the police, feds, or other mobsters will put an end to it.    Mobsters like Meyer Lansky, who never spent a day in prison and died at an old age, are the exception.     The guys in Goodfellas won't have such luck.     Scorsese, with his ever-moving camera, takes us inside this world in a stylish and energetic way.     He sees the people that populate this world from the inside out.   When Henry is sent away in the witness-protection program, he laments that he would have "to live the rest of my life as a schnook."    To him, that's a punishment worse than getting whacked.