Mob movies rank highly with Matt Lynn Digital friends Airport Friend and Cobra. In their respective rankings of top movies, the latter lists three mobster movies among the top nine movies he has ever seen. The former, Airport Friend, includes Goodfellas (1990) as the eighth movie overall on his listing of top films. We turn our attention to the film based on the Nicholas Pileggi book Wiseguy.
(From left, Ray Liotta as Henry Hill and Lorraine Bracco as Karen Hill in the movie Goodfellas).
Wise guy Henry Hill, portrayed in Goodfellas as an adult by Ray Liotta, is a central character in a tight knit group of mobsters based in New York City. Karen Hill, as portrayed by Lorraine Bracco, becomes what begins as an understanding wife. The course of the life the Hills leads to something exceedingly different from what Henry or Karen’s parents experienced, which leads to friction in the marriage as the years explored in Goodfellas are explored.
(From left, Ray Liotta as Henry Hill and Paul Sorvino as Paul Cicero in the movie Goodfellas).
Paul Cicero as portrayed by Paul Sorvino becomes an important mob leader for the career that Henry Hill is staking with his little piece of the mob action. From the point where Cicero agrees to bring the young Henry Hill, as portrayed by Christopher Serrone, into the racket to the point where Hill starts a hustle with young Tommy DeVito, as portrayed by Joseph D’Onofrio, the beginning of mob careers for Tommy and Henry are just getting established as teenagers.
(From left, Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito, Catherine Scorsese as Tommy DeVito’s Mother and Robert De Niro as James Conway in the movie Goodfellas).
Tommy DeVito is portrayed as an adult by Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. Catherine Scorsese plays his mother, Mrs. DeVito. Tommy DeVito never gets married in the film. Henry Hill and DeVito both get into the types of work you’d expect with insight into the personalities and varying degrees of commitment to sticking with the racket.
(From left, Michael Imperioli as Spider and Dennis Farina in the movie Goodfellas).
Of significant influence and authority over the full scheme of Hill, DeVito and Cicero is the role of James Conway. Robert De Niro portrays James Conway. Roles portrayed by Michael Imperioli (as Spider) and by Dennis Farina in part demonstrated how running afoul of Tommy DeVito become things to clean-up either individually or collectively for the crew run by Conway. The outcomes of these two are warnings about loyalty to Hill and DeVito especially. It is in the narrative cycle and personal outcomes for many in this tale that the appeal of mobster movies come for friends like Airport Friend and Cobra, should I understand their feelings properly.
(From left, actor Robert De Niro with film director Martin Scorsese on set of Goodfellas).
Martin Scorsese directed Goodfellas, along with taking screenplay writing credits alongside Nicholas Pileggi. The movie itself offers emotionally compelling cinema with a story of the conflicting needs and turns of an admittedly self-absorbed, sociopathic set of morally-bankrupt characters. The themes of loyalty, respect, getting made or rebuffed, and the finality of the tale is clear, strong, and compellingly told. The story was told with some sense of justice meted out. I’ll leave it to those familiar with the movie, and the state of the larger United States civil and political culture today, to decide if this remains the best Scorsese gangster movie made. I rate Goodfellas at 4.50-stars on a scale of one-to-five.
Matt – Saturday, August 22, 2020
Matt Lynn Digital 