"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster."
Martin Scorsese's famous 1990 film, which followed the story of New York City gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) from his induction into the Lucchese crime family in the 1950s to his downfall and entry into the Witness Protection Program in the 1980s. Along with Henry, the film follows Henry's boss Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro), his best friend Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), and his wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco). The film details Henry's moving up the ranks, his eventual imprisonment, his role in (at the time) the largest heist in American history, and his involvement with the cocaine trade (which eventually gets him arrested by narcotics officers and shunned by the Mob). As the ground crumbles around him, he turns to the Feds for protection, eventually having to "live the rest of [his] life like a shnook".The movie became famous for several reasons, including a long tracking shot through the kitchen of the Copacabana; the montage near the end showing Henry's increasing drug-induced paranoia as he tries to run some guns, get a drug shipment off to Pittsburgh, and make dinner for his family; and Tommy's profanity-laden dialogue and Hair-Trigger Temper, which threatened to make Joe Pesci typecast for some time — and won him the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. The movie itself ended up losing Best Picture to Dances With Wolves.Goodfellas was followed by Casino, a near-remake also featuring De Niro (who 'fagocitated' Liotta's role in becoming the centre of the movie's romantic subplot) and Pesci (still the same sort of vicious, cynical character- though, it should be noted, both guys he played really existed, and he played them pretty faithfully).
Goodfellas provides examples of the following tropes:
Most of the mob is like this when Henry is barely a teenager. Everyone from Paulie and Jimmy on down are all smiles and sunshine. But then the body count grows and the broken deals start piling up...
Tommy, when he realizes too late he's gotta answer for what he did to Billy Batts...
Age Lift: Joe Pesci was 46 at the time of filming. Thomas DeSimone, who Tommy DeVito is based on, was in his teens and twenties at the time of the events in the movie, being murdered in 1979 at age 28.
All Girls Want Bad Boys: Henry pistolwhips the guy who gropes Karen, then gives her the gun to hide, and she confesses in voiceover "I gotta admit - It turned me on."
Berserk Button: Bringing up Tommy De Vito's humiliating past as a shoe-shine boy. He doesn't need much of an excuse to go berserk, but this is one easy way to do it.
Big Applesauce: All of the movie was shot in (and takes place in) New York City and environs. In a twist, we barely see the stereotypical Manhattan sights as most of the movie's action happens in Queens near JFK Airport.
Tommy, to Stacks: "You're always fuckin' late. You'll be late for your own fuckin' funeral."
Then, later, Tommy
Breaking the Fourth Wall: At the end during the trial, Henry Hill begins speaking to the camera, lamenting not only betraying his mentors but lamenting the end of his mafia lifestyle.
Henry Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I bet twenty, thirty grand over a weekend and then I'd either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies. (gets up from the witness stand) Didn't matter. It didn't mean anything. When I was broke, I'd go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it's all over...
Cluster F-Bomb: Tommy, in what became a career-defining role (to some people) for Joe Pesci. Henry's narration is also filled with plenty of F-bombs.
Conveniently Cellmates: Henry shares the same prison accommodation as his gangster pals. This is Truth in Television for them and many other organized crime figures at the time, usually achieved through corrupt prison staff.
Crazy Jealous Guy: Tommy is seen telling his girlfriend not to talk to any men while he goes to the other side of the room, and she comments that he gets so jealous he would kill her for looking at anyone else.
Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangster: The film pulls no punches at showing the dizzying highs as well as the horrible lows of the gangster lifestyle.
Dawson Casting: Joe Pesci was 46 at the time of filming and plays Tommy starting his early twenties.
Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Despite the fact that the movie deconstructs many standard gangster film tropes and has something of a Downer Ending, it's still considered one of the coolest depictions of the Mafia ever put on film - by members of the Mafia themselves, even. The gangster that DeNiro's character was based on was reportedly thrilled such a great actor was portraying him, and kept trying to get in touch with DeNiro from prison to give him pointers. Similarly, the real Henry Hill wrecked his witness protection because he couldn't resist bragging about the movie.
Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off: Henry's father when he finds out the young Henry has been playing hookie to do mob errands. Dad's never seen again in the movie, as Henry basically places himself in a new "family."
Drugs Are Bad: Henry would probably still be rolling in cash and in the good graces of Paulie and Jimmy had he stuck to theft and stayed out of the drug trade... and not got hooked on coke. Paulie warns Jimmy and Henry not to get involved with drugs because of the increased attention it brings from the feds.
Even Evil Has Standards: In the movie at least, Henry's an unrepentant sociopath and lifelong criminal, but draws the line at murder. However, the actual Henry Hill killed at least three people.
Fate Worse than Death: Henry Hill, who has to live the rest of his life as both "a rat" and "a schnook".
Gallows Humor: Quite a bit, most notably the grave digging scene.
Gilligan Cut: A part of the monologue where Karen says that the husbands of mob wives are just "blue collar guys who cut a few corners". Cut to Henry and Tommy hijacking a truck.
Paulie Cicero is depicted as Affably Evil and a likable capo. Henry Hill explains him away as "protection for wiseguys among themselves". Mobster Paul Vario - his Real Life counterpart - had more direct involvement in the nastier (and bloodier) crimes committed by his crew.
Tommy DeVito's real life counterpart was even nastier than he's portrayed. He was eventually murdered for trying to rape Karen.
The movie leaves out the tiny fact that in real life Jimmy liked to shake down people by locking their kids in the fridge, or other stuff like cutting his wife's annoying ex-boyfriend into pieces, as well as numerous other murders. He and Paulie also ripped off the robbers and other guys involved in the Lufthansa heist- nobody got more than a $50,000 cut and most got less. They still got murdered for the connection.
In the film, Hill says that Jimmy had never asked him to kill anybody. Though Hill is an accomplice after the fact on several murders, he never personally kills anyone. In Real Life, Henry Hill did personally kill several people, so this crosses over with Unreliable Narrator.
Karma Houdini: Henry Hill avoids prosecution and mob retribution, though he will spend the rest of his life as a nobody, which he hates. Then again, he'll also go on to help write the book this film is based on, and subsequently become world famous and later relatively wealthy, so he won't be a nobody for too long either.
Kill 'Em All: Jimmy eventually wants to cut every link between himself and the heist.
Little No: Tommy, as he realizes he's about to get whacked. He doesn't even finish saying it. Spoken with the volume of a Little No but with the emotion of a Big "NO!".
Luxury Prison Suite: Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. Which is actually nicknamed "Mafia Manor."
The Mafia: Duh. Ironically, though, none of the main trio of characters are technically members and only one (Tommy) is even eligible (Jimmy and Henry both have non-Italian parents which would prevent them being "made").
Manly Tears: Jimmy after he finds out that Tommy was killed.
The Napoleon: Tommy, by default due to Pesci's actual stature. The real-life inspiration was a large, beefy guy.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: His bosses want to put a hit on Henry at the end because they are worried he'll squeal to the cops. It's the realization that he has a hit on him that makes Henry squeal.
Nice to the Waiter: Subverted. Jimmy is shown handing out $100 bills like confetti to waiters, bartenders, and doormen, but he's still a completely ruthless psychopath who kills people at the drop of a hat.
Oh Crap: Tommy gets just enough time for one before being shot in the back of the head.
The Oner: The shot that starts as Henry leaves his car with the valet and follows he and Karen as they enter the Copacabana through a rear entrance, down a corridor, through the kitchen and into the nightclub as their table is set up and comedian Henny Youngman starts his act. It lasts three minutes.
One Steve Limit: Averted during the wedding scene. "Seems like all of them were named Peter or Paul, and they were all married to a Marie."
Some of the wives wear fur, although the fact that they were either stolen or bought with stolen money makes this overlap with Fur and Loathing
One of the gangsters buys his girl a fur coat with his cut of the Lufthansa cash. Jimmy flips out over it because he told everybody not to buy anything big that attracts attention. This is implied to be one of the reasons why Jimmie becomes paranoid and starts killing the accomplices.
Pretty Little Headshots: Brutally averted with Tommy's murder. Henry even notes that they shot him in the head so that his mother couldn't give him an open casket at the funeral
Samuel L. Jackson: In a bit part (this movie was four years before Pulp Fiction after all...) of the black guitar player who gets involved in the great Lufthansa heist: unfortunately, he gets killed by Tommy and Joe Carbone for not having disposed of the van used in the heist as he was told to do. His death probably sends Jimmy Conway on the course of just killing off all of the heist accomplices (aside from Tommy and Henry) to keep most of the money for himself.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: When Henry is busted for drug dealing, his mob friends begin to cut ties with him in fear that he's going to rat them out to the police. Feeling cornered and fearing that his former friends will try and whack him, Henry has no choice but to make a deal with the police.
Sexy Discretion Shot: Happens between Henry and Linda after driving her home to her apartment. We then see the still shot of the apartment building minutes until the scenery changes to morning light.
The Seventies: The part of the movie where everything goes wrong for Henry Hill and the mob as a whole.
Shoe Shine, Mister?: The film features a scene in which Tommy brutally beats and knifes Billy Batts to death for insulting him about being a shoeshine boy in Tommy's younger days.
Billy Batts is bleeding in the trunk, but he's still alive. So Tommy stabs him eight times. Then Jimmy goes ahead and shoots him four times. And then the title screen comes in.
Jimmy pretty much wipes out his entire crew that worked the Lufthansa heist. By the end only Tommy and Henry seem to be left.
Thou Shalt Not Kill: In a movie about gangsters, the main character Henry does not kill anyone. Not a soul. He buries bodies, steals things, beats people to a pulp, but he doesn't kill anyone. Justified in that, not being Italian on his father's side, he had no chance of becoming a "made man," and thus was more useful without having committed murders. In reality Henry did commit murders for the mob.
Title Drop: Henry explains that "good fella" is code for mobsters referring to fellow members. The title of the original book, Wiseguy, is also dropped.
Too Dumb to Live: No, Tommy, you don't off a made man without the go-ahead from the boss.
Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The film is based on Henry Hill's memoir Wiseguy. However, Scorsese takes a lot of liberties to tell a good story. Henry Hill still says it's 95-99% accurate at almost any given time. It's arguably more like Roman à Clef.
Witness Protection: Where Henry ends up. The real Henry Hill left witness protection some time after the film was released. He says that everyone who would want him dead is long gone, and now gangsters who do contact him want him to read their screenplays.
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