# What's so great about Goodfellas? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 15, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199 "2009-09-15T18:21:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/21 "2009-09-15T22:13:24Z")
I’d take _Goodfellas_ over _The Godfather_ everyday and twice on Sunday. Just an awesome flick. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/22 "2009-09-15T22:20:08Z")
I put the Godfather movies right up there with The Lord of the Rings, entertaining fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/23 "2009-09-15T22:46:51Z")
The squalid collapse at the end is really powerful. The haze of drugs, the groveling to the feds. The realization that all of his glamorous gangster living has left him with absolutely nothing: “Thirty-two hundred bucks for a lifetime.” ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/24 "2009-09-15T23:10:25Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > As another shout out Michael Imperioli and Lorraine Bracco are in both Goodfellas and The Sopranos. And Tony Sirico, and Suzanne Shepherd, and Frank Vincent. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/25 "2009-09-15T23:13:26Z")
I really liked it. I thought it was pretty suspenseful, that there was an undercurrent of “WTF is going to happen now?” throughout. [spoiler] When Tommy/Pesci whacked Morrie, with an ice pick (?) through the back of the neck—that surprised me. When Tommy/Pesci got whacked, thinking he was about to be made—that surprised me. The dead couple in the pink Caddie, as the piano part of “Layla” plays…it creeps me out every time I see it and I still don’t know why (WTF?). When Pesci goes off about Henry/Liotta saying he’s “funny,” I coulda sworn Henry would be killed. When the garbage men find the bodies…flinch! Karen/Bracco bolting in fear when Jimmy/DeNiro tells her to go pick out a new dress. And how Henry/Liotta’s complaining at the end that he can’t get decent pasta…like all that stuff before hadn’t fazed him. > **[\- YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrVG92142QM%5B%2Fspoiler%5D)** > > Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/26 "2009-09-15T23:27:55Z")
It is one of the very few movies I remember leaving the theater early. There wasn’t even that much left. My girlfriend wanted to see it and - since we were fighting anyway - I was reluctant to ask her if we could leave. I was very thankful when she finally turned to me and said: I can’t imagine any way it could end that would make me care - do you want to leave too? YES YES YES, THANK GOD YES! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/27 "2009-09-16T06:12:58Z")
It did have a crime doesn’t pay message. What happened to everyone was ugly and immoral and hellish. Of the Godfather movies, only III had an ending that showed the protagonists paying a significant price. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/28 "2009-09-16T07:42:17Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > It did have a crime doesn’t pay message. What happened to everyone was ugly and immoral and hellish. Nah, the ultimate message is that life _after_ the life of crime is hellish. Recall Hill’s complaints about not being able to get decent food after going into protection and how agonizingly banal his life had become, what with having to wait in line like, y’know, a normal person. _Goodfellas_ is certainly an impressive technical feat. I can see praising it for direction and cinematography (I’m quite fond of the topsy-turvy diner conversation), but I’m too sick of the mobster genre to be impressed by its story or characters. And I’m rather fond of _The Fifth Element_ and will watch at least a little of it every time I catch a broadcast. I even spot previously-unnoticed details now and then. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/29 "2009-09-16T12:26:10Z")
In case anyone is wondering where Hill went for witness protection, at first he went to Omaha but the feds thought the mob found out about that so he moved near Cincinatti. He later was moved to Seattle but after a short while he was kicked out of the witness protection program. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/30 "2009-09-16T13:02:46Z")
> [@Lochdale](#): > > It’s an extraordinary movie. It manages to be compelling, dramatic, funny and all without romanticising the gangsters the way the Godfather movies did. A lot of gangster films like The Godfather films portray mobsters almost like some sort of aristocracy. Cultured, sophisticated guys living in huge gated estates almost like untouchable monarchs with their courts. It seems like romanticized gangster fantasy to me. Scorcese films like Goodfellas, Casino and The Departed ring more true. These are networks of unsophisticated blue collar guys with poor impusle control looking for every opportunity to cheat and steal from the system. They aren’t particularly intelligent or cultured. In fact, they are portrayed as pretty dumb. But they are very shrewd when it comes to their own survival. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/31 "2009-09-16T13:09:31Z")
The thing that gets me about the mafia is that the members see what they do as just another way to make a living, they don’t really think that it’s wrong. The Sopranos also shows the mafia as mostly blue collar type guys. Yes, Tony had a lot of money but he also had problems with his wife and kids like many people do. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/32 "2009-09-16T13:49:55Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > In case anyone is wondering where Hill went for witness protection, at first he went to Omaha but the feds thought the mob found out about that so he moved near Cincinatti. He later was moved to Seattle but after a short while he was kicked out of the witness protection program. And if anyone wants to buy some really bad art from him to support his post-mob lifestyle, you can head over to eBay: [http://stores.shop.ebay.com/HENRY-HILL-GOODFELLA-ARTWORK\_\_W0QQ\_armrsZ1](http://stores.shop.ebay.com/HENRY-HILL-GOODFELLA-ARTWORK__W0QQ_armrsZ1) ---
**Author:** ![ministryman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@ministryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ministryman)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/33 "2009-09-16T15:13:47Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > I recently saw this movie. I… wasn’t that impressed. It’s a good movie, but fundamentally I thought it overblown and too impressed with itself. It’s not great, and generally I found better in the comic moments than the serious ones. In fact, the most serious-seeming moments usually came out as comedy to me. > > Now, whether it’s better than Dances With Wolves I don’t know or care. However, by the second half, I would have turned it off had it not been a swift-moving flick. Yes, that’s a virtue, but _The Fifth Element_ did that better and nobody calls it a great movie. As far as gangster movies go, it has the few virtues of taking place in the modern day. It seemed like a particularly good genre movie, but not even remotely a classic. 1. Pesci’s “What makes me so funny” scene. 2. Based on the true life story of Henry Hill. 3. You got to see a number of actors who would later appear in the Sopranos. 4. It gave you an insight as to how mobsters saw themselves. 5. It reinforced certain aspects of the man code (Never rat out your friends, and pimp slap the living daylights out of anyone who dares to harm your woman). ---
**Author:** ![ministryman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@ministryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ministryman)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/34 "2009-09-16T15:23:51Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > It did have a crime doesn’t pay message. What happened to everyone was ugly and immoral and hellish. Of the Godfather movies, only III had an ending that showed the protagonists paying a significant price. You sure you were watching the right movie? The couple dead in their car? The meat popsicles in the Truck? Billy Bats and Tommy and Spider and Stax? Only Henry Hill got away with it, and he still had to look over his shoulders for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/35 "2009-09-16T15:39:16Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > I really liked it. I thought it was pretty suspenseful, that there was an undercurrent of “WTF is going to happen now?” throughout. > > [spoiler] > When Tommy/Pesci whacked Morrie, with an ice pick (?) through the back of the neck—that surprised me. > > When Tommy/Pesci got whacked, thinking he was about to be made—that surprised me. > > The dead couple in the pink Caddie, as the piano part of “Layla” plays…it creeps me out every time I see it and I still don’t know why (WTF?). > > When Pesci goes off about Henry/Liotta saying he’s “funny,” I coulda sworn Henry would be killed. > > When the garbage men find the bodies…flinch! > > Karen/Bracco bolting in fear when Jimmy/DeNiro tells her to go pick out a new dress. > > And how Henry/Liotta’s complaining at the end that he can’t get decent pasta…like all that stuff before hadn’t fazed him. > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrVG92142QM[/spoiler]](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrVG92142QM%5B/spoiler%5D) I think that you’ve hit the nail on the head,it was such a good movie because being based on a true story you never knew what was going to happen next. This made it truly suspenseful and NEVER boring. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/36 "2009-09-16T15:46:15Z")
> [@Lochdale](#): > > It’s an extraordinary movie. It manages to be compelling, dramatic, funny and all without romanticising the gangsters the way the Godfather movies did. I think it’s probably (I’ve never written a script) fairly easy to have a bad guy character who’s still super awesome-cool and you think “Yeah, he kills folks but man I’d like to hang out with him 'cause he’s the cat’s pyjamas.” But none of the characters in Goodfellas struck me that way. I wouldn’t want to have known any of them, much less wanted to hang out with them. They’re all immoral, violent sleazes with few (if any) redeeming qualities. Even the protagonist lies, steals, aids in murder, shows little concern for his kids, etc. But despite this, where most times I’d say “These guys suck, I don’t care what happens to them…”, I’m still glued to the screen for their story. That has to be good writing because I can’t think of many other films I could say that about. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/37 "2009-09-16T15:49:56Z")
When Tommy and Jimmy killed Billy Batts in the bar it was really funny that Tommy says to Henry “I’m sorry I got blood on your floor” ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/38 "2009-09-16T16:22:47Z")
> [@ministryman](#): > > 1. You got to see a number of actors who would later appear in the Sopranos. Yeah, I remember watching it and thinking, “That guy’s going to be great as Christopher Moltisanti.” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/39 "2009-09-16T16:44:08Z")
Henry Hill has never admitted killing anyone which is not typical for a guy who was in the mob as long as he was. I read somewhere that the reason the mob did not want guys to deal drugs was because of the long sentences drug dealers get which made them more likely to flip and work for the government. Of course that was exactly why Henry flipped, to avoid a long prison term. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199/40 "2009-09-16T17:18:24Z")
> [@ministryman](#): > > You sure you were watching the right movie? > > The couple dead in their car? > > The meat popsicles in the Truck? > > Billy Bats and Tommy and Spider and Stax? > > Only Henry Hill got away with it, and he still had to look over his shoulders for a while. That was exactly my point. Everybody died miserably except Henry and his wife. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-goodfellas/510199.md?page=3)