Scorsese's best film? Difficult to call, though if it doesn't beat Raging Bull, it runs it a close second. What's indisputable is that Marty hasn't made a film to touch it since. For all its flutters of greatness, Casino feels like a pale imitation; Bringing Out The Dead and The Age Of Innocence replace soul with technical excellence; while the epic fumblings of Kundun and Gangs Of New York seem fake and heavy-handed next to GoodFellas' lithe energy.
It's a movie made by a man at the top of his game, a filmmaker with something to prove after The Last Temptation of Christ's tepid box-office return. Scorsese spent an age adapting Nicholas Pileggi's book Wise Guys into a screenplay, and it's a mark of just how seriously he took Henry Hill's 30 years in the Mafia that the script bears his name (as co-author) for the first time since Mean Streets.
Joe Pesci's psycho killer Tommy steals the limelight, but repeated viewing lets you appreciate just how good everybody else is too. New members of Scorsese's gang (Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino) slip into character seamlessly, while Ray Liotta (in only his sixth film) will never be this superb again.
But let's not forget Robert De Niro. Everytime you see him mug his way through cack like Analyze That or Showtime, just cast your mind back to the moment when Jimmy Conway realises he's going to have to kill everyone involved in the Lufthansa heist. Acted with the eyes and a half-twist of the mouth, it's chilling in its Method perfection. If Scorsese was at the top of his game, De Niro was right up there with him.
DVD Extras:
Sorry, but you're going to be disappointed with the cast-and-crew commentary. You just are. They haven't sat Marty down in a room, cranked up the film and taped his comments; they've recorded an interview with him and simply layered it on top. Interspersed are new snippets from Pileggi, Liotta, Bracco, Sorvino, editor Thelma Schoonmaker and DoP Michael Ballhaus, along with archive material from De Niro and Pesci.The result doesn't tie in with what's happening on screen (anyone expecting Scorsese to walk them through the Copacabana Steadicam shot will be sorely pissed off) and doesn't even cover the entire film. Thankfully the second commentary, from real-life GoodFella Henry Hill and FBI agent Ed Macdonald, is everything you'd hope for. Chatting away as the film runs, the Mobster and the Fed who put him into the Witness Protection Program cheerily point out where the film rubs up against reality and where it veers off into fantasy.At points, Hill gets quite emotional as he watches all these dead people up on screen (especially when they get to the bit where Morrie the wig guy gets whacked). Macdonald, though, is constantly upbeat: less of a cop and more like a groupie finally getting to go backstage and see up close all these people he's only heard through wiretaps. They're a great double-act, particularly when Macdonald starts filling in the law-enforcement side of the story.The rest of the package is merely respectable. There's a decent Making Of (even if it does retell tales that have already cropped up on the first commentary); a good comparison between Scorsese's doodles of camera angles on the shooting script and the final shots; a neat look at Mob life with Henry Hill; and a gratuitous mini-doc with talking-head snippets from fans Richard Linklater, Frank Darabont and Jon Favreau. But it's the Hill/Macdonald commentary that makes this Special Edition special. Listen to it from start to finish and you'll feel like you've really gained something.
