As Far Back As I Can Remember, I Always Wanted to Be… Terrified of Joe Pesci
If The Godfather is a majestic opera about honour among thieves, Goodfellas is a karaoke night at the Bada Bing gone violently wrong. Martin Scorsese takes the glossy sheen off mob life and replaces it with a blowtorch, a shovel and a body in the boot of a car.
Based on the true story of Henry Hill, Goodfellas is the cinematic equivalent of being handed a brick of cocaine and a gun, then told to “have fun.” It’s a fast-talking, fast-cutting, voiceover-saturated descent into hell—except hell has better suits and more pasta.
Table of Contents
Plot Summary: Crime, Cocaine and Cooking with Too Many Onions
Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta, wide-eyed and increasingly sweaty) starts out as a young punk in 1950s Brooklyn who idolises the local gangsters. They’ve got money, cars, women and—crucially—the power to park wherever they damn well please.
Henry quickly becomes one of the boys, working with Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro, perpetually on the edge of calmly murdering you) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci, a five-foot-tall Molotov cocktail in Gucci loafers). Together, they rob, bribe, beat, shoot, snort and swear their way to the top of the criminal food chain.
Then, like most criminal empires built on paranoia and cocaine, it all goes spectacularly wrong.
Cast: An Acting Masterclass in Sweaty Panic and Sudden Violence
Ray Liotta as Henry Hill
Liotta’s performance is basically a slow-motion panic attack in Armani. He starts off smooth and ends up looking like he hasn’t slept since Reagan was in office. We believe every twitch, every scream, every “Karen, where’s the stuff?!”
Robert De Niro as Jimmy Conway
Cool, calculating and more terrifying than a wasp in a dark room. He smiles like your uncle and then orchestrates your murder while humming along to Tony Bennett. Classic Jimmy.
Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito
A one-man chaos machine. Violent, unpredictable and entirely incapable of taking a joke. His “Funny how?” monologue is a masterclass in tension-building and possibly the main reason no one ever invited him to open mic night again.
Lorraine Bracco as Karen Hill
Karen is the long-suffering wife who eventually gets hooked on the lifestyle and the nose candy. Her voiceover provides a rare glimpse into the feminine experience of mob life: equal parts glamour, screaming and fear for your life.
Iconic Scenes: Laughter, Murder and Meatballs
- The “Funny How?” Scene
One of the most intense moments in cinema, built entirely on a single sentence. It’s like being held hostage at a dinner party by someone who brought a knife and an inferiority complex. - The “Layla” Montage
Dead bodies being discovered to the sweet strains of Layla is the kind of tonal whiplash Scorsese does best. Beauty and brutality, served ice-cold. - The Helicopter Paranoia Sequence
Henry’s coke-fuelled meltdown is an anxiety masterclass. If you’ve ever had a panic attack in traffic while juggling drugs, guns and sauce prep, you’ll feel seen.
Themes: Loyalty, Greed and Sudden Murder Over Minor Inconveniences
Goodfellas isn’t just about gangsters—it’s about addiction. Not just to drugs, but to status, money, power and the kind of friendship where your best mate might stab you in the neck if you sneeze wrong.
Power
Everyone wants it. Most die for it. Those who survive end up in witness protection, microwaving egg noodles.
Loyalty and Betrayal
No one in this film trusts anyone and rightly so. The second you turn your back, someone’s either sleeping with your wife or digging your shallow grave.
The American Dream (But Worse)
Henry Hill lived the American Dream—until it drove him into paranoia, bankruptcy and a life of mediocrity. Which, for a mobster, is basically worse than death
Based on a True Story (Unfortunately for Henry Hill)
Goodfellas is adapted from Nicholas Pileggi’s book Wiseguy and most of the absurdity is straight from the source. Yes, there really was a Lufthansa heist. Yes, Henry ratted everyone out. And yes, the mob really did whack people for looking at them funny. You’d get better job security working at a haunted amusement park.
Cultural Impact: Mob Life, But Make It Relatable
- Reinvented the gangster genre with grit and style.
- Influenced everything from The Sopranos to Guy Ritchie’s entire filmography.
- Made the phrase “Funny how?” a permanent fixture in pop culture and social anxiety.
- Scored Scorsese an Oscar for… well, no, actually he got snubbed. Again. (He had to wait until The Departed. Which, ironically, is kind of a remake of Infernal Affairs, not even his own idea. Go figure.)
My Final Thoughts: Nobody Goes to Jail, They Go to Hell with a Paycheck
Goodfellas is a high-octane morality tale soaked in blood, marinara and cocaine sweat. It’s a film that seduces you into rooting for the bad guys—then yanks the curtain back to reveal the broken, twitching, paranoid wrecks they’ve become.
It’s not about glamorising crime. It’s about showing what happens when you spend decades living like a king… only to end up living like a pleb in the suburbs, complaining about supermarket ketchup.
The ultimate cautionary tale for anyone considering a career in organised crime. Or customer service.
If You Like Goodfellas, I Recommend These Movies:
- The Godfather: Family, Pasta and the Occasional Murder
- Scarface: Say Hello to My Nervous Breakdown
- The Irishman: Three Hours of Regret and Slowly Dying Inside
GoodFellas
James Conway
Henry Hill
Tommy DeVito
Karen Hill
Paul Cicero
Frankie Carbone
Sonny Bunz
Frenchy
