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Hero For Christ

Movie Review: Goodfellas



11/7/07

I found Goodfellas to be one of the most overrated films I've ever seen. It's not the case that I simply dislike mob movies --I count "The Godfather" and "Donnie Brasco" both among my favorite movies. But unlike those others, Goodfellas was utterly devoid of moral value. It wasn't simply the relentless violence and profanity --it was also the materialistic shallowness of the main character. Not only was he motivated throughout the film solely by greed, vanity and a bullying thirst for power, but in the end he broke even the value held most sacred by he and his associates by ratting out the mob. In doing so, he betrayed the solitary stoic virtue that had endeared him to the mob in the first place. Then, at the end, his only regret was not for the lives he had taken or ruined, but for losing his opulent lifestyle.

Not only was the lead character morally repugnant, but the only characters who were in any way decent or sympathetic (such as the hero's upright and honorable father) were treated with contempt and subjected to humiliations. Meanwhile the other characters ran the gamut from bad to worse, including the hero's gold-digging wife, and reaching a nadir in the form of the character played by Joe Pesci, a hair-trigger sociopath so repulsive that the only reaction I could feel when his character was finally rubbed out was an overwhelming sense of relief.

I even found the famous Scorsese filmmaking to be a vast disappointment, since the entire film was through-narrated in such a blatant way as to reduce the on-screen action to illustrations of the narrative --an animated slideshow. In summary, I can credit this film's nearly universal acclaim only to the way in which its unrelenting message of material excess at all costs reflects the beliefs and the attitudes of the nation.

F.

See Also:

  1. Pop+Philosophy
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