Goodfellas is a movie I’ve heard of for a long time, but when I was two years old I was obviously too young for the movie. But now over 30 years later, I get the chance to watch it. I’ve enjoyed gangster movies before, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the plot.

The main character is Henry Hill, a half-Irish half-Italian young kid growing up in New York state. He starts out by being the lowest of the low in an Italian mafia. He goes from doing simple chores to getting his hands seriously dirty.

At a young age, he rises through the ranks and gets as high as his mixed heritage will allow in the mafia. He marries a Jewish girl and makes a ton of cash. For his line of work, he seems like a decent person but that may change in the future.

He has many older friends in the mafia, and for the most part they love him. The leader of Paulie is often proud of him. His friend Jimmy often acts like a protective older brother. And his buddy Tommy is so unpredictable that it may put them all in danger. As the decades roll-on, will he survive the life of an Italian gangster?

I wasn’t terribly surprised that I really enjoyed Goodfellas, but I did enjoy it more than I expected. The runtime is well over two hours, but it rolls so smoothly that it feels much shorter. The direction and acting is top notch, which isn’t surprising as many people had dubbed it as one of the greatest films of all time. I do prefer The Godfather over it, but both are fantastic films.

Score: A-