GoodFellas (1990)

"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." If a film's opening line can stop you dead in your tracks, that's already a sign you're in capable hands. GoodFellas doesn't ease you in. It drops you straight into Henry Hill's world, feet first, and from that moment it simply doesn't let go.

This is Scorsese at the absolute top of his game. What strikes you immediately is the sheer sense of momentum, the feeling that every scene is alive and crackling with energy. The voiceover narration, the needle-drops, the camera that never quite settles, all of it conspires to make the film feel less like something you're watching and more like something you're being pulled through. It's a rush. And crucially, it never drags. Not once in nearly two and a half hours does your attention wander, which is its own kind of achievement.

The rise-and-fall structure could so easily feel mechanical, the kind of arc you've seen a hundred times before. But GoodFellas makes it feel genuinely inevitable rather than formulaic. You understand exactly why someone like Henry finds this life irresistible. The money, the respect, the belonging. Scorsese lets you feel the seduction of it before he starts dismantling it piece by piece. That balance is what gives the film its moral weight without ever becoming preachy about it.

The performances are extraordinary across the board. Ray Liotta is brilliant here, utterly convincing as a man who genuinely believes in the world he's inhabiting even as it slowly destroys him. It's a career-best turn, grounded and charismatic in equal measure. Robert De Niro is typically excellent, bringing a quiet, coiled menace to his role. But the film belongs to Joe Pesci. Every single scene he's in carries this electric unpredictability. You're laughing one second and genuinely unsettled the next, and you're never quite sure which way it's going to go. That famous "funny how?" scene is a perfect encapsulation of what he does throughout: you don't know whether to laugh or brace yourself, and somehow it's both at once. It's a stunning piece of work.

What I keep coming back to is how the film manages to be so stylish without ever losing the grime underneath. It's slick and propulsive on the surface, but there's a real ugliness to this world, a casual brutality that the film never flinches from. The violence, when it comes, doesn't feel glamorised so much as matter-of-fact, which is somehow more disturbing. These are terrible people doing terrible things, and yet you're completely gripped by them. That's a difficult trick to pull off and Scorsese does it seemingly without effort.

It's worth saying that if you want to see what Scorsese can do when he's working with this kind of New York criminal milieu, I'd also point you towards Gangs of New York, which I think is a fascinating companion piece, and for a very different side of De Niro working with Scorsese, I found The King of Comedy just as rewarding in its own strange way.

GoodFellas is funny, disturbing, and deeply human all at once. It does what only the very best films manage: it makes you feel like you've lived something rather than just watched it. Not just one of the finest gangster films ever made. One of the finest films, full stop.

Four and a half stars.

Rating: ★★★★½  | Year: 1990  | Watched: 2025-04-09

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Martin Scorsese: Italianamerican (1974) · The King of Comedy (1982) · Gangs of New York (2002) · Cape Fear (1991)
More with Robert De Niro: The Untouchables (1987) · The King of Comedy (1982) · Shark Tale (2004) · Little Fockers (2010)
More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)