Goodfellas

This film has already gone down in film history as one of the best on the mafia. However, it is worth it to make it clear that it is not a saga-like “The Godfather”, nor an epic representation-like “Once Upon a Time in America”. It is a story of rise and fall: a chronicle of a soldier destined to be destroyed.

The first sequence sets the tone and pace of a strong narrative rythm for the rest of the movie. Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy De Vito (Joe Pesci) are apparently fleeing in a car and a few strange blows force them to stop.

They soon discover the origin of these blows: they come from the trunk. They stop, open the trunk and see a bloodied man: he is alive, sure they wanted to kill him before. Then they top him violently. Immediately you hear a soft, melodious music and move on to another scene: Henry Hill at age 13, speaking about his dream of being a mobster.

He does not aspire to be president of the United States, but more like Paul Cicero, a gangster who does not wait in any line to get into any place, drives Cadillacs and is someone in the neighborhood, respected by all, including the police. He is someone in a place where everybody is no one.

Within minutes, Scorsese defines characters, a world and a story that will tell the life of Henry Hill, half Sicilian half Irish, who joined the Pauline Family at a really young age. A story that will cover more than 40 years but that will be reduced to the essential and will not be told in strictly chronological order, so as to give greater intensity.

Four years in prison go faster and the suddenly the story telling becomes more thorough. A long and remarkable trip will take Henry Hill will at Copacabana, the hot spot to be, to see a show with his new girlfriend Karen (Lorraine Bracco), a Jewish girl from a wealthy family who he wants to impress. He gives tips to avoid parking, no queuing, enters through another door and goes opening other doors with “magic tips”, until they are next to the famous singer and a waiter takes a table from nowhere, two chairs, the ornament of the bow and two glasses of champagne.

The camera will follow them without getting too far away from them to feel the vertigo and the privileges of power they feel in this life: to have those fleeting privileges, they steal, kill and are willing to do everything and anything.

A cruel, vain, stupid way of life doomed to failure. However, it looks splendid and full of action in the memory of Henry Hill, from the perspective of his new gray and anonymous witness protection life, which has saved him from imminent death, altough "Now I have to wait in line like all the others".

Of course, this "existential parable" results in interesting reflections. Not only because it is a wicked parody of the American Dream, but because it is a terrifying reality of life. Each one draws its own conclusions and somehow this film implies an enquiry.

But Scorsese is an artist rather than a moralist: he wants to show that world in detail, reconstruct it as an archaeologist: how these mobsters lived, how they ate, loved, dressed, played and hatched their thefts and crimes. Scorsese's restless camera is revealed from within and blues and rock are the emotional knockout.

As we know, the real Henry Hill, while in prison, told about his life to Nicolas Pileggy, who from his testimony wrote the novel “Wisguy: Life in a Mafia Family”. A valuable material, rich in details, that made Scorsese say: "This is the book I've been waiting for years."

Pileggy was co-writer of this project and that is another strength of this brilliant film, but it did not do to win him the Oscar that lately he would win for “The Departed”, an inferior work in comparison.

Director: Martin Scorsese

Writers: Nicholas Pileggi (book), Nicholas Pileggi (screenplay)

Stars: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci