Goodfellas

A Martin Scorsese film in 2 hours and 20 mins charting the 1950’s through to 1980. Goodfellas is based on a true story with Ray Liotta as lead role, Henry Hill. Henry is brought into the Mafia from a young age skipping school to run errand, and he immediately starts to enjoy the life of a gangster with nice suits, women and – and lots of money. He meets Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito, played by Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci.  They become his two closest friends whose mentality instability starts to cause trouble within the Mafia. The gang carry out many felonies, such as the infamous Lufthansa heist at JFK airport.

Through Henry Hill, the film shows the grim reality of gangster life behind the fast cars and banknotes. Its a story about loyalty and keeping your hands clean – but the question is who would rat out their friend to keep their reputation from picking up dirt? Excellent characterisation with a cameo role by Scorsece’s mum, which we loved. Wife Karen, Lorraine Bracco did an excellent job and Liota made a goodfella seem easy. However there’s a long build up and I’m not sure that this film should be at the top of the IMDB website. Have your say…..

Trailer

Ratings:  7.7/10

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Casino

Mobsters set up gambling casinos in Los Vegas in the 1980’s so they could cream of the money.  Very closely based on truth, a 1983 newspaper headline story.  The Tangiers Hotel is one of these  greedy scams run by Robert De Niro (Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein) for the mob.  The fab opening scene sees a car bomb go off and you know this is going to be a violent film from the start.  Mobster friend and ally Joe Pesci (Nicky Santoro) is a hitman who loses his temper easily and tries to make a killing on the casinos by cheating until he is banned from every casino.    Sam does not have a license for his casino, to avoid detection he changes his job title regularly and sooner or later the trail of felony leads to his door curtesy of Nicky.   Sharon Stone (Ginger McKenna plays the girlfriend who becomes Mrs Rothstein.   Robert De Niro wears incredible pink suits.  The film does not have tension running through it and the narrative is long and laboured and it could easily have been cut down to 2 hours from a whopping 3!.  However, Sharon Stone puts in a good performance as the girlfriend and their relationship is believable.

IMDB Casino

Trailer

Rating: 7.5/10

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Limitless

Ever wondered what it was like to be a super-intelligent human and in a state of hyperawareness?  You can figure out what the title means.

A simple little pill does all of the above to Bradley Cooper who lives in disarray in his apartment writing his novel which never gets started.  One little bag of the stuff helps him pull his life together, he cleans up his act like Mary Poppins and achieves runaway business success!  However, all drugs have side effects and the demise of his secret success is just around every corner.  Anna Friel shows what the drug can do to your complexion and Robert De Niro appears over 2/3rds of the way through the film so don’t be hanging on the edge of your seat for him.  Bradley Cooper takes you on a journey through his drug addiction seeing patterns where there have never been before and using foresight that can dodge death or paying the rent to being a crippling addict waiting for his next fix.  To sum up; one edge of the seat moment, the one and only Bradley Cooper, and one witty one-liner at the end of the film which makes you want to punch the air, and then feel silly cos the rest of the film did not match that feeling at all hence the rating 6.5 due mostly to a weak story line.

IMDB Link: Limitless

Trailer

Rating 6.8/10

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