| Goodfellas | | Cast : | Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino | | Director : | Martin Scorsese | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | September 19, 1990 | | DVD Released Date : | August 17, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), Spanish (Dubbed), English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 09, 2005 | | Summary | great movie | Content
 | Really good movies hip hop headz love this type of film...and so do I classic gangsta flick |
| Rating | | | Date | August 09, 2005 | | Summary | Made Men Rule... | Content
| This film is a culmination of Martin Scorcese film work. The director of such classic films as TAXI DRIVER and RAGING BULL, journeys to an area he would touch upon with MEAN STREETS, CASINO and in GANGS OF NEW YORK. Ah, yes, the mobster film. Whereas the GODFATHER films romanticized life in the mafia, GOODFELLAS brought the family down to earth, each member as human as the couple living next door. Scorcese builds the story around that premise. Themeatically we see a story that stresses corruption as all corrupting. Where nobody can be trusted and what you have today will be gone tomorrow.
The cast is superb. Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) is the voice of the story, a young goodfella who grew up hanging around the gang hideout. The gang itself is filled with colorful characters with fun nicknames such as Frankie the Wop. Freddie No Nose, Nicky Two Times on to Johnny Roast Beef. In both of those elements can be seen a strong influence on DeNiro's film BRONX TALE a few years later. The always-reliable Robert DeNiro is Jimmy Conway who exhibits the largest internal character arc in the film. He begins as a confident and pleasant man with a trip-hammer temper, but later he is taken in by his own paranoia. The mob boss Paul Cicero is wonderfully played by Paul Sorvino who starts out as a omniscient presence but in the end, just an old mobster going to prison. But, it is the breakout roles of Lorraine Bracco and Joe Pesci that make this ensemble glitter. Bracco wonderfully plays 30 years as Henry's wife Karen, a woman who is at first obsessed with her husband's power. Later she is a partner in and finally a victim of it. She could use a few sessions with her psychiatrist character from THE SOPRANOS. Pesci is insane as Tommy DeVito, a wild mobster with a dangerous duality of character; either the class clown or he's on a rampage. Allover great casting helps deliver a strong statement based on Nicholas Pileggi's best selling novel.
The DVD has a good audio transfer, which is important to the film as musical trends help define each era in the film. The video is a bit dark and since this is an early DVD release, needs to be flipped over halfway through. Watch for other members Tony Sirico and Michael Imperioli of THE SOPRANOS in supporting roles. And that is Samuel L Jackson as Stacks Edwards. This film is very violent and so my Aunt Joyce should avoid it but if that and constant harsh language don't bother you... Should you go on the lam from this film? Fuhgeddaboudit.
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| Rating | | | Date | August 04, 2005 | | Summary | Unfriendly Persuaders | Content
| Soon into this movie about New York mobsters. there's a long tracking shot: a young hood (Ray Liotta), flush with money and entitlement, escorts his date (Lorraine Bracco) into the Copacabana through a side entrance; the couple navigate corridors, a restaurant kitchen, and enter the crowded club; there, a waiter sets up a table for them just as comedian Henny youngman opens his act with "Take my wife, please!" Its a bravura sequence by an artist who knows how to make movies better than most.
That artist, director Martin Scorcese, is confident enough to cast in supporting roles his own mother and no less an acting legend than top-billed Robert DeNiro. Clearly, he has his priorities straight.
Jump starting his career, Liotta stars ingratiatingly as a youngster/adult who aspires to gangsterism under the guidance of the local capos (DeNiro. Paul Sorvino and Joe Pesci). Bracco strings along, enjoying the good life and raising their kids. All goes awry when Liotta falls afoul of the law and agrees to turn state's evidence against his former mentors, landing them in jail and he and his family in the witness protection program. He wrote a best-selling book about all this and Scorcese collaborated with him on the script.
Scorcese shows us the daily operations of a morally corrupt group of temper tantrum sadists, murderers and thieves who nevertheless dote on family, value loyalty, and protect their own. Pesci perfects the first of many psycho killers he's played in other movies. Francis Coppola moved the narrative in a stately manner in his "Godfather" films, while Scorese drives his briskly here. "Goodfellas" isn't yet ranked in the same league, but that the comparison even comes to mind suggests its inevitablity. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 20, 2005 | | Summary | A Great Story, Great Vision, and Great Actors Make Great Movies | Content
| While "Goodfellas" is not my favorite movie, it is defiantly in the top 5.
"Goodfellas" is a mostly true story based on the book "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pileggi. The movie very closely mimics the story in the book. It is about the life of Henry Hill, an associate in the Lucchese crime family. The movie chronicles Hill's journey through the world of organized crime, starting with a part-time job at a cab stand after school, rising to the heights of stealing millions through participating in robberies and hijackings, then finally how his world rapidly disintegrate after creating a large narcotics empire. After being arrested for drug trafficking and facing 25+ years in prison, in order to preserve the lives of himself and his family, Hill testifies against multiple associates in the world of organized crime and evaporates into the federal witness protection program.
Robert DiNiro and Joe Pesci perform brilliantly, playing blood thirsty, borderline psychotic gangsters. However, I think Ray Liotta has the performance of his career paying the lead character, Henry Hill, a down to earth gangster who is interested in his women and money rather than killing. The movie has much less blood than a Rambo movie and very few special effects, yet words cannot express how remarkable the movie is. To me, one of the best scenes in the movie, the "You're a funny guy" scene in the restaurant, has no special effects at all.
This is one of those movies has something for everyone, love, deceit, murder, drugs, corruption, graphic violence, humor, and mystery. The only issue I have with the movie is that a lot of the details the various crime figures use in their conversations did not mean anything to me until I read the book. Even though the movie is almost two and a half hours long, the movie does not seem that long. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who is looking for an excellent drama. This is one of the few movies I think belongs in almost everyone's movie library. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 09, 2005 | | Summary | One of the Best | Content
| Goodfellas has got to be one of my alltime favorite movies,right up there with Godfather and Godfather Part II. Great acting and really puts you into the life of a gangster Dinero and Pesci are just a lil bit perfect together. All this being said I also want to comment on some of the reviewers who say you have to flip it over that is the old version and based on the dates of the reviews the Special Eddition has been out for a while now and you don't have to turn the disc over which makes it that much better, I too had the original you had to flip and rushed out and got special edition right away once I heard it was all on one disc anyway just thought that those who were missing out should know that. |
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