Goodfellas (1990) — Riley Cross Reviews

Director: Martin Scorsese | Genre: Crime | Mood: Tense | Runtime: Feature

I remember that second weekend of July 1990 like it was yesterday. I wasn't in Blockbuster flipping through the new releases—because who goes to a video store new releases when you have about ten thousand copies of *Jerry Maguire* you still need to ring up?—but everyone I served was renting this. And honestly, I get it. When Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta) looks right at the camera and says, "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster," you confess right there on the carpet you wanted one too.

This isn’t one of those movies where the bad guys die at the end while leaving a trail of crying widows. This is the "we are eat, drink, and be merry tomorrow we die" kind of movie, and frankly, it’s way better for a quiet night in. You want to avoid politics, avoid that couple arguing over the check in the next room, and just watch a masterclass in chaos. Scorsese shoots this like he’s standing right in the room with Henry, not just behind a camera, and the camera movement alone will give you motion sickness in the best way possible.

You don’t need a spoiler alert for the Joe Pesci moments. You know the ones. He just convinces people they’re useless with such conviction that you’re actually scared for them. It’s tense watching him put a fuse inside a dynamite stick just to scare a thief, but it’s pure electric energy. It’s the movie where the soundtrack goes from "fun party time" to "frightening reality" faster than you can change a VHS tape.

This is for when you’ve had a long week, you’ve likely done exactly what you were supposed to do, and you’re desperate to watch people do the opposite while looking incredible doing it.