Goodfellas tells the true story of Henry Hill and his involvement with the mob, so there are a lot of real-life events and characters depicted in it, and the reaction of the real mob was better than expected. The gangster genre is a favorite among viewers, and one name that stands out in it is definitely Martin Scorsese, who even though has explored various genres throughout his career as a filmmaker, he continues to be best known for his gangster movies. Out of all his movies addressing the mob, the one that is still considered as his best is the 1990 movie Goodfellas.
Based on the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, Goodfellas chronicles the life of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), from his days as a teenager running errands for Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) and his crew, to his full involvement with the Lucchese crime family and his decision to become an FBI informant years later. Goodfellas was very well-received by critics and viewers and won various awards, most notably the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Joe Pesci, who played Tommy DeVito. However, there’s one specific audience that reacted to Goodfellas in different ways: real-life gangsters.
Although the names of the main characters in Goodfellas were changed (with the exception of Henry’s name), many other characters, either supporting or minor, retained the names of their real-life counterparts, so whether Scorsese and company wanted it or not, there was a certain level of risk of the mob not liking what they saw in the movie. Luckily for the crew behind Goodfellas, real gangsters reacted quite well to it, with Pileggi telling GQ in 2010 that they love it “because it’s the real thing” and they knew the people featured in it, so it felt “like a home movie”. It’s worth noting that Scorsese even cast some real wiseguys in the movie, which was a bit of a problem when the studio had to put them on the payroll, as they kept giving fake and inaccurate Social Security numbers.
There was also one particular case where Goodfellas almost got a real-life gangster into trouble. Michael Franzese is one of the names mentioned in the scene where Henry is walking through the Bamboo Lounge, introducing the audience to all the mobsters that gathered there. As it turns out, Franzese is also a real person and he had no idea he was going to be mentioned in the movie, and to make it worse, by the time Goodfellas came out, he had already left the mob, but the way he did so was against the mafia code. Franzese feared that this name-drop would draw unwanted attention to him and his family, and the situation was especially uncomfortable as he shouldn’t have been mentioned in the scene as the Bamboo Lounge was the hangout place of the Lucchese family, and Franzese was part of the Colombo family.
Although the response from the mob was mostly good, there were many others who weren’t on board with the themes addressed in Goodfellas and its portrayal of Italian-Americans. During an anniversary celebration of Goodfellas in 2015 (via Insider), Scorsese shared that he and Pileggi weren’t allowed in an Italian restaurant they used to frequent when the movie came out, as they “apparently denigrated a certain ethnic group for the picture”, though that’s a different story. Goodfellas got its fair dose of criticism for its violence and language when it came out, but at least the crew behind it can say they got the approval of various gangsters.