Martin Scorsese was already a name and talent to be reckoned with on the big-screen, with his 1976 film TAXI DRIVER starring Robert De Niro proving to be one of the most enduring films of the decade.
Nearly two decades after he explored the New York gangster scene in MEAN STREETS, Scorsese reunited with De Niro to adapt Nicholas Pileggi’s book WISEGUY for the big-screen in a script they co-wrote together.
Renamed GOODFELLAS from the original book title (there was a TV show called WISEGUY around the same time), the film is the story of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) who wandered into a cabstand looking for a job. He meets Jimmy Conway (De Niro) and makes friends with Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci, in his Oscar-winning role (Best Supporting Actor)). Tommy is a little hot-headed and proves it one night when he taunts Henry when he makes a mockery of Tommy’s story thinking it is funny.
A major robbery from Lufthansa proves to be the making and also the undoing of Henry and his core-group of friends and their moral code…..
Although similar in tone to Francis Coppola’s GODFATHER films in terms of the brutality of the violence, GOODFELLAS is very much Scorsese’s baby and represents the real expression of his talents which remain consistent today with films like THE DEPARTED and most recently THE IRISHMAN, which brought Pesci out of retirement. Edited with energy by long-term collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker, who has cut most of Scorsese’s films over the years, GOODFELLAS, like SCARFACE, is one of the most quoted gangster films of all time – and still watchable three decades on from its’ original release.