Themes

Goodfellas is widely regarded as the first gangster film to show in detail how the "working class" mafia lived. Unlike The Godfather series, there is no central "don" character. Henry, Jimmy and Tommy are "blue-collar" soldiers in a larger family, but the film never shows us their ultimate superiors, Paul Cicero's bosses. (According to Nicholas Pileggi's book, Wiseguy, Cicero was a Capo for one of the Five Families, the Lucchese Family.) A detail that is hardly noticeable (perhaps because of Scorsese's staccato, almost frantic direction) is the actual lack of any discernable plot for the first hour; up to the point that Billy Batts is murdered, the story is made up of slice of life vignettes, simply concerned with familiarizing the audience with the way Cicero's soldiers operate his day-to-day business.

Additionally, while The Godfather presents the audience with sympathetic characters (particularly Michael Corleone and Kay Adams), the mobsters in Goodfellas are often seen as antisocial, cold-blooded, and violent. The young man who lives across the street from Karen (whom she's "known all her life") attempts to rape Karen while driving her home, and in response to this Henry walks over to the boy's house and relentlessly pistol whips him in front of his friends, apparently shattering his nose. This scene shows that even though Henry is normally amiable and non-violent, he is not afraid to use violence when he feels it to be necessary.

Other viewers, however, find that the character that they can sympathise most with to be Paul Sorvino's Paulie Cicero, the Capo of this particular crime family and the boss of the neighborhood. Though he can be seen as a menacing criminal who makes a living through extortion, Paulie is not as impulsive or treacherous as his sociopathic underlings. For many, Paulie's fate illustrates the lack of honor within the criminal lifestyle, since he's the only honorable character and he ends up in prison. Indeed, while many gangster films would put such a character in the forefront, Paulie is a supporting character without much of a role in the film other than highlighting this central theme.

The film's dominant themes include blind ambition, dangerous excess, and watching the company one keeps. The first half of the movie seems to glorify the mob lifestyle, but the second half effectively exposes its less romantic aspects. Henry devolves into a drug-addled mess, the ultra-violent Tommy gets his comeuppance, Jimmy becomes so controlled by greed and paranoia that he turns on his friends, and Paulie can no longer control his now reckless subordinates.

Dark humor, a Scorsese hallmark, saturates the film. An early scene shows Tommy arguing with a nightclub owner when he won't pay a hefty tab. In a surprise burst of violence, Tommy smashes a wine bottle over the man's head while his cohorts (Henry included) laugh uproariously. Both scenes where Tommy shoots the hapless bartender, Spider, feature the same sort of attitude from the guys; to them, violence is simply a way of life. There is a bit of concern from Henry when Spider lies dead on the floor; however, after the still surprised Henry announces "He's dead," Tommy replies with a shrug "Whatta'ya want? I'm a good shot." Tommy doesn't seem bothered about having to dispose of Spider's body, he gets up saying "who the fuck cares? I'll dig the fuckin' hole. I don't give a fuck. What? Is it the first hole I dug?"

The title cards at the end of the film explaining Henry's further crime dealings tell the viewer that no one who led a life of crime in the past can truly escape it. The theme is further reinforced by the brief shot of Tommy firing six shots from a revolver directly into the camera and the final shot of Henry, who smiles deviously.