Goodfellas Ranks at the Top in Gangster Movies

What is it about Goodfellas that makes it so easy to watch time and again and will securely place it in that pantheon of classic movies? It's a gangster movie of which there are plenty, but this one hits all the right notes; great acting, well-drawn characters, a sense of time and place, first rate production values, and superb direction by Martin Scorsese. Yet it's the everyday quality of the story that gives it its power.

This isn't a glitzy world of drug cartels, jets planes, men with tons of gold chains and flashy rings. It's a world just around the corner from many of us; the local bar, the small grocer, the track houses, old kitchens with old stoves, and streets that don't breathe money. It's little people trying to become big people without the bother of a 9-5 job and treating the law as an impediment to be overcome. That's what all gangsters feel, but in Goodfellas that confined world seeps into us as we watch.

Based on a true story, we follow young Henry Hill played by Ray Liotta, in probably his best role, as he notices the perks and the money older hands at the crime business amass and how they rise above the drab neighborhood, kings and counts in a world made up of a few blocks of a city or an acre of split level living in the suburbs. He enters at the lowest rung in the hierarchy even though knowing that not being Italian means he can't reach the pinnacle, a made-man. These are the ones who wear the armor of longevity and success, poison to those who harm them in any way. He embraces the rules that give this lifestyle shape, a shifting sort of thing, strongest in the group but less so the farther out you get.

Henry goes along for the ride, energetically, aided by his mentor Jimmy Conway played by Robert de Niro, grabbing each morsel of the good life pushing aside its cost. Acceptance, relishing the inside jokes, the camaraderie, the best tables for shows, better clothes, cars, power, all entwine his soul trapping him willingly. Risk enhances life and punishment is only a part of the deal to be dealt with. In Henry's case showing he can keep his mouth shut cementing his place in the group.

But this world doesn't expand life, just sucks it dry. Those around him, caught in the same web unwilling to disentangle themselves, still rot from the inside although they can't smell it happening. Don't want to. Probably the most disturbing character is Tommy De Vito, played by Joe Pesci, who fully deserved his Oscar; a psychopath who is still accepted by all showing the shallowness of their own lives. In one scene where the men are playing cards, De Vito kills a young man serving drinks over a minor slight. It's both brutal and encapsulates the mind set of these people. With the dead boy lying there, the others shake their heads seeing it as a nuisance, something to be cleaned up to get their lives back on track.

Henry gains the good life, has a wife, children, mistress, and a nice home in the suburbs with get-togethers for birthdays, weddings, and partying. But it exists in the closed world of the group where money and favors pass from one to the other cementing ties and building the wall against outsiders higher. Wives overlook their husband's lives and try to make the abnormal normal. They all laugh and fight and pledge fealty to each other but the guard is always up. One false move doesn't just mean a neighborhood's disapproval; it could mean a beating or death. Too much is on the line for anyone to break away.

It's the story of one man's rise and fall but not necessarily repentance. Money and power takes its toll on him and those around him. Loyalty has bounds and disloyalty wipes out all the positives anyone builds up. But for those involved, the allure of easy money, being the lord of even a tiny kingdom, and tossing out the rules you don't like, never goes away. What Scorsese has done is create a movie where we abhor the lifestyle and the lowlifes in it, yet we can take a peek at how it fills a void in many lives in a misguided way. It's a movie we inhabit more than just watch, which is always the sign of great filmmaking. Other movies where you can get this same gritty, commonplace feeling are Donny Brasco and A Bronx Tale.

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