Actors - Goodfellas

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	Actors - Goodfellas

Goodfellas (or, more commonly spelled, GoodFellas) is a 1990 film directed by Martin Scorsese, which was based on the novel Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, which is itself based on the true story of mobster Henry Hill. The film stars Robert De Niro as Jimmy Conway, Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, Lorraine Bracco as Hill's wife, Karen Hill, and Joe Pesci, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the irascible Tommy DeVito (based on Tommy DeSimone).

Warner Home Video announced that the film is to be released on HD DVD on April 25, 2006.

Story

In the film, Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta, becomes involved in the mafia at a young age: as he says in the film, "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster."

As a boy, Henry idolized the Lucchese crime family gangsters in his blue-collar, predominantly Italian New York City neighborhood, and in 1955 quit school and went to work for them at a local cab stand, much to the dismay of his working-class parents. The local Lucchese mob capo, Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino), (based on the actual Lucchese mobster Paul Vario) and Cicero's close associate Jimmy Conway (De Niro), (based on actual associate, Jimmy Burke), help cultivate the boy's developing criminal career. When Henry is arrested for selling stolen cigarettes, he wisely tells the police nothing and is lauded by his superiors for "being a standup guy."

As an adult, Henry and his friend Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci, in a widely-acclaimed and Academy Award-winning performance) conspire with Conway to steal much of the billions of dollars in cargo passing through Idlewild Airport (later JFK). They help out in a key moneymaking heist, stealing over half a million dollars from the Air France cargo terminal in 1967 and paying Cicero his percentage of the take as per the mafia's code of tribute.

Henry also meets and falls in love with Karen (Lorraine Bracco), although there is conflict between the families since Karen's parents are Jewish and Hill is half-Irish and half-Italian. (Because of his and Jimmy Conway's own Irish ancestry, they can never be actual "made men" – full members of an Italian and Sicilian crime family.) When Karen learns firsthand about what Henry actually does for a living, she is fascinated instead of repelled; it impresses her that Henry has the nerve to steal instead of just "sitting around, waiting for a handout."

As the years go by and Henry earns Cicero's trust, his friends become more daring (and therefore dangerous) – Conway's excessive love of truck hijacking and grand theft is bad enough, but DeVito is nearly psychotic in his need to prove himself through violence - with an explosive quick-temper to boot. In one memorable instance, DeVito thoughtlessly shoots an innocent and unarmed young man, Spider (played by Michael Imperioli), in the foot for not bringing him his drinks fast enough during a card game. Later on, after Spider has recovered, DeVito fatally shoots Spider for talking back to him.

DeVito's violent streak reaches a crest in June 1970 when he bludgeons to death Billy Batts (Frank Vincent), a made man in the competing Gambino crime family, a major offense that could get them all killed by the Gambinos if discovered. Henry, Conway and DeVito place Batts's bloody corpse in the trunk of their car, stop by DeVito's mother's house to pick up a shovel and a knife, finish killing Batts upstate (this scene opens the film), bury him in an abandoned plot of rural land – and then discover six months later that the land has been sold to a real estate developer and the (badly decomposed) body has to be exhumed, moved, and reburied. (This scene serves as an example of the movie's black humor; Tommy, Jimmy and Henry go to dig up the body, a scene shot mostly in silhouette bathed in the red light from the car's rear lights; while Henry reacts badly to the excavation of the corpse, eventually vomiting, both Jimmy and Tommy remain nonchalant - even joking about it; the exhumation is just business to them). During this time, Henry's marriage deteriorates when Karen finds he has a mistress; Karen threatens the other woman so violently that even Cicero has to mediate.

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Actors - Goodfellas

Story

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