AFI Film #92: Goodfellas

DeNiro, Pesci, Liotta... if you like your American gangster films it's highly likely that you've enjoyed this film. This is another that I own so I'll cop to lots of bias here but I do think it's a little more highly rated than I might think it deserves. Still, who can forget Pesci's "I make you laugh? You think I'm funny?!" scene? Honestly, I don't think it is better than some of the films lower on the list. There, I said it. Now I just hope Ray Liotta doesn't show up at my doorstep ready to do a tapdance on my head.

That said, it is deserving of a place on the list if only for the fact that it is a very powerful film that simultaneously pays tribute to the Godfather franchise while adding its own modern twists. It also, in my opinion, deserves a place if only for being arguably the model upon which the Sopranos television series would later be based.

Getting back to the film, one of the elements that always surprises me upon watching it is how the music of the soundtrack plays a prominent, mood-setting role. It is so very up front that at times it seems nearly confrontatonal, for lack of a better term. It is as if nearly every new scene or mood shift in the film is clearly demarcated by some new song. I think this is one of the few films that I saw early one in which I literally felt anxious and almost uncomfortable throughout. If there is any movie that creates a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop, it is this one (for the record, I think Hoffa is another example of this even though we pretty much know how that will end from the very beginning).

At any rate, despite some misgivings about its placement amongst the competition, I give it 4.5 "You think I'm funny?!"s out of 5.