Goodfellas….or Wise Guys?
Watched Goodfellas again this evening (it’s now 21(!) years old, circa 1990). I’ve seen it before, but it’s been awhile. While I’m kind of hot/cold on gangster movies (seen the first two Godfather‘s and liked them, but couldn’t make it through Casino…blecch – never seen Scarface or many of the others out there) I always liked this one, despite the sporadic over-the-top violence, for several reasons.
I’m not sure if Joe Pesci here is an acting genius (or just an a**hole) but he certainly makes you increasingly loathe him, until of course karma takes care of it. DeNiro and Liotta are sympathetic main characters, until by the end Liotta sells them all out and DeNiro has gone beyond the pale with trigger-happy paranoia. Paul Sorvino’s tan seems to darken with every scene until he’s practically George Hamilton by the end (a wee bit more rotund, to be sure :).
It’s also interesting how these ‘wise guys’ profess how everything is about family, having kids, protecting their own, etc. etc. etc. and yet they all parade around all night long in the clubs or their rackets, have multiple girlfriends despite being married with kids, and generally behave like 12 year olds let loose with money, booze, cars and no consequences. One example (among many) is when they go to the zoo to threaten feeding a guy TO THE LIONS if he doesn’t talk/cough up the money he owes. Really. Assuming this would even work – isn’t it a bit silly? Why wouldn’t they just throw him off a bridge (likely over the Hudson) with the ‘cement galoshes’ or similar?
And the main character, Liotta’s Henry Hill – tells the whole tale with wistful regret – not unlike Alex’s narration for much of A Clockwork Orange – that he ultimately had to join society to escape being locked up for the rest of his life (or killed by his mafia buddies) – but that he’s bored and misses the life. Talk about ungrateful!
So what’s the message? Is the movie just trying to entertain, or is it trying to demonstrate karma, or is it trying to deglamorize the mafia lifestyle – or in a twisted way, glamorize it? When I compare this to say, the first two Godfather movies – those are much more stylized and portray an older, perhaps more ‘classical’ and restrained mafia perspective? Goodfellas is more modern, possibly more brutal and certainly more over the top.
Maybe there’s no message here. And certainly no ‘christ figure’ or martyr in this movie – Henry Hill, despite what he’d have you believe – is certainly NOT one. The people in this movie either get what’s coming to them with eyes open, or are alternatively too stupid to see it coming (but get what they deserve anyway). Several of the henchmen and Morrie in particular end up this way.
In the end I guess it’s interesting to think about how far removed that lifestyle is from a normal one – or is it?
candybowl
Tags: 90's, freaks, malevolence, movies, mythology