Goodfellas | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

GoodFellas, written by Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese, and directed by Scorsese, is the greatest film ever made about the sensual and monetary lure of crime, and the whole perversely brilliant movie comes into focus in a single, staggering shot.

Like everything Scorsese makes, it is crisp and clean, with exciting cinematography and superior acting. Despite its length, it is fast-moving and gripping. I walked away emotionally drained from more than two hours of tension.

We're taken in at our own risk, hooked on the film's speed, the power of its sights and sounds. Our nerve endings occasionally scream caveats... But we never doubt that a master at the top of his game is calling the shots.

All that's on the screen is a showy, humorless vaunting of directorial technique, and misplaced technique at that. Scorsese sets up the material as comedy, but he seems to consider it beneath him to let viewers find any of it funny.

Funny and frightening, unpredictable and provocative, GoodFellas may be the most authentic Mafia picture ever made. The acting is superb, and so natural that no one -- least of all De Niro -- seems to be performing.