Notes on GoodFellas
Written August 9, 1997
I just saw GoodFellas on video, but unfortunately, I saw
Casino a few years ago already. The storyline of the two
movies is so similar that I just had to make a list of all the
similarities:
-
They're both about Mafia people who are at the height of their power
in the 1950's and 1960's, but run into troubled times and lose the good
life by the late 80's.
-
Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci appear as
main characters in both movies, with Pesci as a particularly brutal
mobster.
-
There are troubled wives and characters struggling with drug
problems.
-
Both GoodFellas and Casino are based on books
by Nicholas Pilgette, and both are directed
by Martin Scorsese.
Scorsese spends a lot of time recreating the look and feel of the
periods in both movies. Although he is very effective, I felt that
he was too effective. In the first 50 minutes or so of GoodFellas,
nothing happens. All the action occurs in the latter part of the
movie, and in fact by the end, we're concentrating so much on the
action that the period details get lost.
I was also reminded of Scorsese's Bronx Tale, also with DeNiro.
As in GoodFellas, a young boy is lured into the mob by visions
of power, money and respect. In that movie, however, DeNiro plays
the good guy, and racial tensions are also discussed.
Howard C. Huang
<hhuang@cs.uiuc.edu>