Goodfellas presented some of the mafia’s rules when telling the story of Henry Hill, and here’s every one he broke before he became an FBI informant. Martin Scorsese is one of the most beloved and respected filmmakers in the entertainment industry, and even though he has explored various genres in his career – from black comedy to thriller and even sports drama – he’s still best known for his gangster movies. His projects from this particular genre have been praised for years, and the one that still stands 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 fascinated by the mafia presence in his neighborhood and 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. As Goodfellas is based on a true story, many real-life characters and events are depicted in it, most notably the Lufthansa heist, and it also casually mentioned some of the mafia’s rules and part of its code of honor, though some of them were left aside. However, Henry broke some of these throughout the movie, and some were more obvious than others.
Henry went from a trusted member of the Lucchese crime family to a traitor to Paulie and later the entire crew when he cooperated with the FBI and sent Paulie, Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro), and more to prison. In the first act of the movie, when Henry was still young and wasn’t yet a proper member of Paulie’s crew, he was caught by the cops while selling cigarettes with Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). Henry didn’t say a word to the authorities about who he worked for and more, earning the trust of Jimmy and company, with this one telling him he learned the “two greatest things in life”: never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut. In the third act of the movie, however, Henry did the exact opposite by becoming an FBI informant and telling them everything he knew, did, and witnessed, sending his friends to jail.
Before his involvement with the FBI, Henry broke other important rules within the mob. Among those is one that states the members of the mob must respect womanhood and their elders, something Henry failed to do. Although he wasn’t the only one who cheated on his wife (he even said “Saturday night was for wives, but Friday night at the Copa was always for the girlfriends”), he hurt his wife, Karen Hill, with his various affairs, to the point where Karen had to ask Paulie for help. On this note, it’s worth mentioning that, in real life, the rule extends to “not looking at other men’s wives or women”, and breaking it was punished by death – and the real Karen Hill reportedly had an affair with Paul Vario (Cicero in the movie) while Henry was in jail, and Tommy DeSimone (DeVito in Goodfellas) tried to rape her, which some speculate led Paul to betray him by telling the Gambino crime family Tommy was responsible for the death of Billy Batts.
Another important rule broken by Henry Hill was his involvement in drug dealing. When Henry, Paulie, and Jimmy were sent to jail, Henry began dealing drugs in prison to support his family, and Paulie gave him a pass under the condition that he stopped once they got out, but instead, Henry continued and brought Jimmy and Tommy in. Henry’s drug business ultimately led Paulie to end their association, as Paulie knew that those who got involved in drug trafficking were easy targets to become informers and thus destroy the “family”. One of the rules of the mob is not getting involved with narcotics, with many adding that they shouldn’t use drugs either as it’s considered a “filthy business”. Henry, then, also broke this big rule, and Paulie obviously wasn’t happy about it. Surely, the biggest rule Henry broke was ratting on the crew, but that was definitely not his only betrayal throughout Goodfellas.
