Goodfellas (1990) is a great gangster movie novel by Scorsese

The review is dedicated to the 35th anniversary of the release of the movie Goodfellas (1990) by Martin Scorsese. Let’s immediately clarify the underlying meanings of the name of the tape. It would seem that “nice guys” or, more neutral (but unused in translation), “buddies” is the exact equivalent of “goodfellas”. But, in addition, in criminal jargon, this word referred to themselves as Italian gangsters who recreated their mafia clans in overseas distances. Their “family” structure was shaped by an English word, from which the Italian “fello”, literally meaning “cruel, evil” and even “treacherous”, shone through. For Martin Scorsese, a natural New York Sicilian, all these subtexts, I think, became the main ones when he was looking for a title for the film adaptation of the book by his fellow New Yorker and Calabrian father Nicholas Pileggi “Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family” – one of the bestsellers of the mid-eighties.

The main character of the “Goodfellas”, the wiseguy from Pileggi’s documentary book, is by no means an Italian, but a descendant of another Catholic nation that flooded the New World – an Irishman by blood, Henry Hill. Since childhood, Henry, who dreamed of becoming as cool as the mafiosi who lived next door, became an apprentice to one of them, Paul Cicero, from the age of 11 (his image was powerfully embodied on the screen by Paul Sorvino). The young hero of this story grows from an errand boy and a seller of stolen cigarettes a few years later to the status of the closest henchman of his boss and his Irish partner Jimmy Conway (who in real history bore the surname Burke). The film leaves out the pages of the book when seventeen-year-old Henry, trying to please his father, who disapproved of his ties to the mafia, enlists in the army. He will be kicked out of military service in disgrace, because there he continued to break the law.

Well, in Scorsese’s film, we see Henry as an already successful young man (Ray Liotta became his on-screen avatar), who is now eager to please wherever he appears. But he, like Jimmy Conway (whose role went to the great Robert de Niro), has been ordered to join the “family”. The third renegade hero is Tomi DeVito, a former shoe polish man who has proven himself to be an extremely unstable type in the criminal environment, who, for example, costs nothing to publicly kill a waiter who thoughtlessly cut him off with a sharp word. The image of this charming little scumbag was so brilliantly lived on the screen by another New York Italian Joe Pesci, who deservedly received an Oscar for this role.

In the movie “Goodfellas”, even the seemingly background characters are remembered, two of whom were embodied on the screen by the parents of the director of the tape, Catherine and Charles Scorsese. Sicilians by their roots, they definitely entered the images of Tommy DeVito’s oddly caring mother and the elderly Vinnie, the taciturn chef of the mafia’s prison suite.

Like any great work of art, Martin Scorsese’s film gives the viewer the opportunity to experience the screen story in their own way, acquire their own impressions and draw their own conclusions. On the one hand, the life of a mafia can seduce with its brilliance (in the form of cool cars and other tinsel) and adrenaline rush, a code of uncomplicated rules correlated with the capital commandments of the Church and the warmth of family communication. But, on the other hand, the gangster lifestyle values above all the power of power and money, and sometimes a person’s life is not worth a penny if you are not part of the “family” circle. Henry and his two cronies are not protected by the status of clan members, only Tommy could get there as an Italian.… But we will not reveal the twists and turns of the dramatic plot for those who are not yet familiar with the “Goodfellas”.

According to the author of the book that formed the basis of the film, Scorsese called him and said without emotion: “I’ve been waiting for this book all my life,” Pileggi replied: “And I’ve been waiting for this phone call all my life.”

The fruit of their collaboration has been at the top of the lists of the best films in world cinema for the past 35 years. Subsequently, the writer and the film director crossed paths in creative projects twice more – in Casino and The Irishman.

And in 2025, according to the script by Nicholas Pileggi, Barry Levinson’s “Mafia” was released, where Robert de Niro embodied two famous mafia bosses on the screen at once, opposing each other, but this is a completely different story. Completing this one, let’s add another interesting touch. The director of the legendary Soprano Clan movie series, David Chase (who celebrated his 80th birthday on August 22, 2025), explicitly pointed out that one of the key inspirations for his creation was a semi-comedic episode from Martin Scorsese’s film, where Tommy DeVito’s mom forces a trio of accomplices to dine at night to the accompaniment of his old lady’s instructions. In addition, 27 (!) actors from the “Goodfellas” also became members of the “Sopranos”.