Goodfellas makes you feel like you are watching guys that you know or knew. To this day, I have a friend that still talks like Jimmy Two Times. He always says things like "Nice Nice" and that was just a background piece in Goodfellas. But that is the point, all that is background is just as important as the main players and locales. It all paints us a perfect picture of what mob life must be like. And with all due kudos to The Godfather, but there is no other film that has ever made mob life look so real and feel so tangible the way Goodfellas does.
To say that Joe Pesci is the best part of this film would be to discredit the rest of the cast, but at the same time, you have to mention him in some way. His portrayal of Tommy is haunting. Here is a man that is so insecure and wants to be the top dog, the made man so bad that he can't decipher between what is a joke and what is disrespect towards him. Of course the scene in question is when he shoots a common boy for telling Tommy to screw himself after he shot him in the leg. You would think the guy has a right to let off a little steam and vent, but Tommy is always looking for the diss. He is always looking to find some hidden gesture from someone that is putting him down. Even at the beginning when he is getting on Henri in the now famous " You're a funny guy " scene. He is kidding with Henri but deep down inside he is angry with him, you can see it and feel it. Joe Pesci gave the performance of his career and he richly deserved to win best supporting actor that year.
The story and script by Pileggi is sheer inside brilliance. You can feel the inside observations that no one can have except for a guy that spent his whole life on the inside. They ring so true and they get into your blood. From scenes like the fat guy running around delivering messages to the other mob guys because he doesn't like to use the phone to the scene when Henri, Jimmy and Tommy have Billy Bats in the trunk but they stop off at Tommy's moms house for a late night dinner of pasta and such. They also have to borrow a sharp knife to finish off the guy in the trunk, but to his mom they have to cut off the hoof of a dear that hit the car. And the scene where Tommy does kill the young kid for joking with him and then Jimmy gets mad at him, not for killing the guy but because he doesn't want to dig a hole tonight. There are so many tiny observations in Goodfellas that give it the authenticity it has. And it is a film that stays with you for years to come. I think this is Scorcese's best film and although I understand and accept why the academy awarded Dances With Wolves the accolades it did, if this film would have swept the Oscars that year, no one would have been surprised. It is a landmark film and I think it is one of the best films ever made. And again, taking no credit away from Coppolla's Godfather epics, but this gets inside the mafia on a deeper level. It goes one step beyond what Coppolla gave us, and for that Goodfellas should be remembered as the best film about gangsters ever made.
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