As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster...

Well not me, that is what Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta) says at the start of the movie. Goodfellas was made in 1990 and is the first of many gangster movies on my list. And here I was thinking it was a story about the Salvation Army.
I haven't seen many, if any gangster movies or shows, that is why there are so many on my list. One thing I do know is if you are making a gangster movie you need the following ingredients -


1. Robert De Niro
2. Joe Pesci
3. Killing, lots of killing and then revenge killing.
4. Guns and knives (see point 3)
5. A respected character (see point 1)
6. A crazy character (see point 2)
7. Cigarettes and cigars
8. Italian suits
9. Lots of swearing
10. Martin Scorcese as director

Goodfellas is based on a true story and I have a vague memory of seeing a documentary about it. It follows the life of Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta as I have mentioned, as told be him. He gets involved in organised crime from an early age and befriends Jimmy (played by Robert De Niro) and Tommy (played by Joe Pesci) and works for Paulie (played by Paul Sorvino), the mob boss. Later in life Henry starts dealing in drugs and becomes addicted to cocaine, his marriage suffers and he is in fear of being chased by police and in fear of his mob connections. After a massive heist with Jimmy and Tommy, amongst others, they all start getting paranoid that the others will "rat" on them, or lead the police to them. The solution: kill them.

This movie has confronting violence, that is why it gets an R rating. The killings are shocking which is the way they are meant to be. Joe Pesci's character is particularly disturbing. He is a maniac who kills people just for making fun of him. The lack of distress he has with the notion of killing somebody, chopping them up, and disposing of the body is chilling. Joe Pesci won an Oscar as best supporting actor for this role. Even though Henry Hill is a majorly flawed character, drug addict, violent, corrupt etc, I still found him to be likable. The same can be said about Jimmy, Even if they were crooks they were mostly fair and kept the violence mainly to fellow mobsters or people who deserved it.

The acting, script, direction and pace of the movie are all very good. There is something about it though that I didn't like, but I can't put my finger on it. I think it was slightly too long and I got just a little bit confused at times with who was who (all those Italians look the same to me). The ending was not what I expected, which is a good thing. Maybe the thing I didn't like about it was how confronting it was. Maybe I should stick to Disney movies.

The Ratings -
Goodfellas : 6 stabs with a large kitchen knife
Spaghetti with home-made sauce : 6 tomatoes