Goodfellas Review

‘As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.’ – Henry Hill

As far back as I can remember, Goodfellas has been my favourite film. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration because there was a period between the ages of 3–11 when my favourite film was The Lion King. But from the moment I first saw Goodfellas I fell in love. Now, ahead of a national re-release in celebration of a new remaster and in conjunction with the BFI’s ‘Scorsese Month’, I am about to complete a small dream of mine and watch it for the first time ever on the big screen.

It’s hard to pinpoint any one reason why Goodfellas has had such a profound effect on me. It is a perfect storm. You have Martin Scorsese, one of the all-time great directors, at the very top of his game. Then you have Robert De Niro as his creative partner, turning in an immaculate supporting performance, lighting up every scene but never overshadowing his fellow players. Every single scene buzzes with an energy, there are customary stylistic touches (the famous steadicam scene is most well-known), but Scorsese is never in thrall to his style, rather it is in thrall to him. Every choice he makes serves the story, every shot has weight and sophistication. The soundtrack is superb, but notice how it bleeds through scenes, linking sequences and giving narrative cohesion when cuts take us to a different part of the action.

The cast is perfect. Joe Pesci’s psychotic Tommy is oft-imitated in the gangster world, but never bettered, not even by the maestro’s own Casino a few years later. No matter how many times I watch it, the “You think I’m funny?” scene still crackles with tension. Ray Liotta too turns in a career best performance. It is hard to imagine anyone else so perfectly inhabiting the perennial hanger-on of Henry Hill, too soft for the dangerous life of a gangster yet incapable of being anything else.

He may be best known for gangster films, but after Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather was released Scorsese had no desire to work on another gangster movie, feeling that the genre had been mastered. This film however had a personal pull for him: these were the New York streets he had grown up in; he knew this world of wise guys; had witnessed their magnetism first-hand. It is, I think, telling in every frame: this is a story that he had been born to tell. For Scorsese, the failed Catholic priest, this communion of worlds, of his childhood in New York and his adult filmmaking prowess seems like manna from Heaven-sent, invigorating him, pushing him to create a world only he could. As a film fan, I know The Godfather to be a technical masterpiece, but for me Goodfellas will always be the closing chapter of the gangster genre.

If you are free this week, go along and witness this film on the big screen where it was meant to be seen. Fall in love for the first time or all over again. You won’t regret it.

10/10