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Recap / GoodFellas

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In 1970 New York, friends Henry Hill, Jimmy Conway, and Tommy DeVito are driving down the road when they hear noise coming from the trunk of their car. They pull over and open the trunk, revealing a heavily injured and bloodied, yet still alive man. Tommy stabs the man multiple times before Jimmy finishes him off with some bullets. As Henry closes the trunk, he narrates how he's always wanted to be a gangster.

Henry's story begins in 1955 in East New York, Brooklyn, where the half-Irish, half-Italian teenager becomes enamored with the gangsters who hang out at the cabstand and pizzeria across his house, run by Tuddy Cicero and his brother Paul "Paulie" Cicero, the neighborhood boss. Henry gets a job at the cabstand and soon begins ditching school to spend more time there. This leads to a letter of truancy being sent to his house, which his father beats him for. When told about this, Tuddy has two of his men rough up Henry's postman to stop sending letters to his house.

Now working under the Ciceros full time, Henry quickly becomes involved with their criminal acts. It's through Paulie that Henry is introduced to Jimmy, his future mentor, and it's through Jimmy that Henry would meet Tommy, his lifelong friend. While selling loose cigarettes at a factory, Henry is apprehended by two detectives and arrested. Thanks to his mob-affiliated lawyer, Henry is let go with no punishment. Jimmy congratulates Henry for learning the two most important things about being a gangster: never rat on anyone, and don't say anything. Outside the courtroom, Henry is applauded by Paulie and other gangsters for his first arrest.

Several years pass, and Henry and Tommy, now adults, are still working for the Mafia. At a restaurant, Tommy is telling one of his work stories when Henry calls him a "funny guy". Tommy seems to get offended at this, and the atmosphere gets tense before the two laugh it off as a joke. Sonny, the restaurant owner, confronts Tommy about how much he owes the restaurant, and Tommy attacks him. Sonny complains about this to Paulie the following morning, and Henry has Paulie agree to be a part-owner of the restaurant to keep Tommy in check. Paulie quickly runs the restaurant out of business due to demands of payment, and when the restaurant goes bankrupt, he has Henry and Tommy burn it down to collect the insurance.

Tommy tells Henry of a Jewish woman he's been trying to date, but won't go out with Italians, and asks if Henry can come on a double date with her friend. Refusing at first, Henry agrees to go with Tommy and his date, but shows no interest in Tommy's date's friend, Karen Friedman. On their second date, Henry doesn't even bother showing up, so she confronts him at the cabstand. Henry promises to make it up to Karen, and takes her out on a date to the Copacabana. It doesn't take long for the two to fall in love.

One day, Henry and Jimmy are arguing with Morris "Morrie" Kessler, a wig salesmen, over paying back money he borrowed to film a commercial. As they argue, Henry gets a call from Karen, where she tells him that her neighbor Bruce had groped her. Henry takes Karen home and proceeds to pistol-whip Bruce for what he did to his girl, later telling Karen to hide his gun. This incident strengthens Karen's love for Henry, and the two soon marry. Karen is at first overwhelmed about being a gangster's wife, but Henry assures her that she'll get used to it. As time passes, Karen settles in to her new life.

In 1970, Henry and and his friends are celebrating the release of Gambino family member Billy Batts at a nightclub owned by Henry. When Tommy arrives, Batts repeatedly insults Tommy by bringing up his past as a shoeshiner. Tommy gets tense with Batts, and things seem to calm down until Batts insults Tommy again. Enraged, Tommy attempts to lunge at Batts and has to be escorted out by Henry. Once the party is over and the nightclub is cleared out, Jimmy distracts Batts long enough for Tommy and him to ambush Batts and beat him to death. This goes against the Mafia code, as Batts was a "made man". The murder of a made man requires a good reason and express permission; their unsanctioned murder would warrant retribution from the Gambinos. Realizing this, Jimmy, Henry, and Tommy cover up the murder by transporting the body in the trunk of Henry's car and burying it in upstate New York. Six months later, Jimmy learns that the burial site is slated for development, forcing them to exhume and relocate the decomposing corpse.

In 1974, Henry starts an affair with Janice Rossi, moving her into an apartment near his house so that they can be closer. A jealous Karen grows suspicious about this, and she and Henry begin to fight over Henry going out too much. This eventually culminates in Karen harassing Janice at her apartment and holding Henry at gunpoint as he's sleeping. Henry moves in with Janice, but Paulie insists that he return to Karen after collecting a debt from a gambler in Tampa with Jimmy. Henry and Jimmy get the money, but upon returning to New York, they're arrested after being turned in by the gambler's sister, an FBI typist, and receive ten-year prison sentences.

Due to the corrupt prison guards, Henry is able to enjoy his time in prison. To support his family on the outside, he has drugs smuggled in by Karen to sell them to other inmates. In 1978, Henry is paroled, and a party is thrown celebrating his release. Paulie takes Henry outside and warns him not to get involved with the drug trade due to the risk of all of them being caught. Henry agrees, but quickly expands his cocaine business by smuggling drugs from Pittsburgh against Paulie's orders, soon getting Jimmy and Tommy involved with it.

Jimmy begins organizing a crew to raid the Lufthansa vault at John F. Kennedy International Airport. While taking a shower, Henry overhears on the news of the heist being a success, with the crew managing to steal $6 million - the biggest heist at the time. The crew celebrate at a bar, where Jimmy chastises two of the members for spending the money on expensive gifts instead of waiting until things cooled down. When news come out that the getaway truck was found by police after Stacks Edwards, the driver, got too stoned to bring it to a junkyard in New Jersey as originally planned, Jimmy sends Tommy to kill him.

At the bar, Henry tries to ask Jimmy about what happened with Stacks, but Jimmy isn't too worked up about it. He and Tommy reveal the big news to Henry; that Tommy is going to become a made man. This excites Henry; since he and Jimmy are not fully Italian, they could never be made. With Tommy as a made man, they can essentially do whatever they want under him. Morrie begins pestering Jimmy again about receiving his share of the Lufthansa heist, with Henry having to assure Morrie that Jimmy will get him his money. Jimmy, however, decides to have him killed the next day. As Henry tries to figure out how to convince Jimmy not to kill Morrie, Jimmy suddenly calls off the hit while enjoying one of Tommy's stories. Henry is relieved, but that night, Morrie starts asking Jimmy again about his money. Jimmy agrees to talk about it, but as they get in Jimmy's car, he has Tommy kill Morrie.

Dead bodies of the Lufthansa heist members begin being discovered throughout the city. Henry implicitly theorizes that Jimmy would have killed them anyway rather than share the profits of the heist, with him and Tommy spared due to their friendship with Jimmy. On the day Tommy is to be made, Jimmy is ecstatic, eating at a diner with Henry while waiting for a call that the ceremony went through. Tommy is taken to be made, but soon realizes that he's been set up. Before he can react, he's shot in the head and killed in retaliation for Batts' murder. Jimmy receives the phone call, where he's told that Tommy is dead. Jimmy is left in tears as he and a dumbfounded Henry stand around in the diner's parking lot.

In 1980, Henry becomes a paranoid, nervous wreck from excessive cocaine use and insomnia. He sets up a drug deal with his Pittsburgh associates, but is arrested by narcotics agents and jailed. After bailing him out, Karen explains that she flushed $60,000 worth of cocaine down the toilet to prevent FBI agents from finding it during their raid, leaving the family virtually penniless. Henry goes to Paulie for help, but Paulie, feeling betrayed by Henry's drug dealing, gives him only $3,200 and ends their association. During a routine visit with Jimmy, Jimmy sends Karen to a nearby store to pick up some dresses as a gift. Karen, suspecting that Jimmy might be trying to get her killed, flees instead. Henry meets Jimmy in a diner and is asked to travel on a hit assignment; the novelty of such a request makes Henry suspect Jimmy is trying to get him killed.

Facing federal charges and believing that Jimmy plans to have him and Karen killed, Henry decides to enroll in the Witness Protection Program, even though it means that Karen will not be able to see her parents. He gives sufficient testimony to have Paulie and Jimmy arrested and convicted. Having been forced out of his gangster life and living amongst regular people, Henry bemoans his new life and unhappily remarks that he now has to live like someone he never wanted to be; an average, boring "shnook".

The end title cards state that, as of the film's release in 1990, Henry is still a protected witness and was arrested in 1987 in Seattle for narcotics conspiracy, receiving five years probation. He has been clean since then.note  After 25 years of marriage, he and Karen separated in 1989 while Paulie died the previous year in Fort Worth Federal Prison at the age of 73 from respiratory illness. Jimmy is serving a twenty-years-to-life sentence in a New York prison for murder, in which he will be paroled in 2004, when he will be 78 years old.note 


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