Taglines: Shooting people was ‘No big deal’.
Goodfellas movie storyline. Henry Hill says, “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster”, referring to his idolization of gangsters in his 1950s blue-collar, predominantly Italian-American neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn. Wanting to be part of something significant, Henry quits school and goes to work for them. He is able to make a living for himself and learns the two most important lessons in life: “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut”, the advice given to him after being acquitted of criminal charges early in his career.
Henry is taken under the wing of local mob leader, Paul “Paulie” Cicero and his associates: James “Jimmy the Gent” Conway, who loves hijacking trucks; and Tommy DeVito, an aggressive armed robber with a temper. In April 1967, they commit the Air France robbery. Enjoying the perks of their criminal life, they spend most of their nights at the Copacabana nightclub carousing with women. Henry meets and later marries Karen, a Jewish woman from the Five Towns area of Long Island. Karen is initially troubled by Henry’s criminal activities but is soon seduced by his glamorous lifestyle.
On June 11, 1970, Billy Batts, a mobster in the Gambino crime family, insults Tommy with a remark about him having been a shoeshine boy in his younger days. Enraged, Tommy and Jimmy attack and kill him. Knowing their murder of a made man would mean retribution from the Gambino crime family, which could possibly include Paulie himself being ordered to kill them, Jimmy, Henry, and Tommy cover up the murder. They transport the body in the trunk of Henry’s car and bury it in upstate New York. Six months later, Jimmy learns that the burial site is slated for development, forcing them to exhume the decomposing corpse and move it.
Henry sets up his mistress, Janice Rossi, in an apartment. When Karen finds out about their relationship, she tries to confront Janice at the apartment building, and then threatens Henry at gunpoint at home. Henry moves out to live in the apartment with Janice, but Paulie gets involved, mediates between the couple and directs him to return to Karen after completing a job for him; Henry and Jimmy are sent to collect debt from a gambler in Florida. However, they are arrested after being turned in by the gambler’s sister, a typist for the FBI. Jimmy and Henry receive ten-year prison sentences.
In prison, Henry sells drugs smuggled in by Karen to support his family on the outside. After his early release in 1978, Henry further establishes himself in the drug trade, ignoring Paulie’s ban on drug trafficking, and convinces Tommy and Jimmy to join him. Jimmy and a lot of Henry’s associates commit the Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy International Airport, stealing $6 million. However, after a few members buy expensive items and the getaway car is found by police, Jimmy has most of the crew killed. Tommy is eventually killed in retribution for Batts’ murder, having been fooled into thinking he would become a made man.
By May 11, 1980, Henry is a nervous wreck from cocaine use and insomnia. He tries to organize a drug deal with his associates in Pittsburgh, but he is arrested by narcotics agents and jailed. After he is bailed out, Karen tells him she flushed $60,000 worth of cocaine down the toilet to prevent FBI agents from finding it during their raid, leaving the family virtually penniless.
Goodfellas (stylized as GoodFellas) is a 1990 American biographical crime film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a film adaptation of the 1986 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese. The film narrates the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill (the first-person narrator in the film) and his friends over a period from 1955 to 1980.
Scorsese initially named the film Wise Guy and postponed making it; later, he and Pileggi changed the name to Goodfellas. To prepare for their roles in the film, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta often spoke with Pileggi, who shared research material left over from writing the book. According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals wherein Scorsese gave the actors freedom to do whatever they wanted. The director made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines he liked best, and put them into a revised script, which the cast worked from during principal photography.
Made on a budget of $25 million, Goodfellas grossed $46.8 million. It received positive reviews from critics and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, with Pesci winning Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Scorsese’s film won five awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, including Best Film and Best Director. Additionally, Goodfellas was named the year’s best film by various critics’ groups.
Goodfellas is widely regarded as one of the greatest films in the crime genre. In 2000, it was deemed “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant” and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Its content and style have been emulated in numerous other films and television shows.
Goodfellas (1990)
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino, Frank Sivero, Tony Darrow, Frank Vincent, Gina Mastrogiacomo, Catherine Scorsese
Screenplay by: Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese
Production Design by: Kristi Zea
Cinematography by: Michael Ballhaus
Film Editing by: James Y. Kwei, Thelma Schoonmaker
Costume Design by: Richard Bruno
Set Decoration by: Leslie Bloom
Art Direction by: Maher Ahmad
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: September 19, 1990
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