#96: Goodfellas

Goodfellas (Scorcese, 1990)

Goodfellas is the only movie from the 1990s in the TSPDT top 100. This I attribute mostly to the fact that this particular website uses lists made from now all the way back to the 1950s equally, and Goodfellas has a few years on Pulp Fiction and other arguably more deserving 90's movies. It's probably the most influential gangster film made since the Godfather movies. It clearly influenced The Sopranos. (Half the supporting cast also appeared in The Sopranos.)

Goodfellas tries to explain what makes the gangster life so attractive. You can go wherever you want without waiting in line, do whatever you want. If you get in with them, everybody immediately treats you with respect. Gangsters are walking male ids, unaccountable to society. (At least through the eyes of a wide eyed kid.)

Then you delve deeper into the gangster life and look at it more long term and realize loyalty doesn't really exist, and your best friends will kill you the second you become inconvenient to them.

The acting and scripting are great as to be expected from a Scorcese film, but I think gangster films are a bit overrated. There's only so much I can be made to care about the fate of a bunch of thugs and murderers. And I don't see why they all have to be so long. But, as a gangster film, there's not a whole lot I can fault it on.

Rating: **** / 5

18/101

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