Who Said I Wish There Was a Way to Know You Were in the Good Old Days Before You Left Them

Goodfellas is a 1990 film nearly the rising and fall of 3 gangsters, spanning three decades.

Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written past Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese, based on Pileggi's volume, Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family.

Three Decades of Life in the Mafia.taglines

Henry Hill [edit]

• As far dorsum as I tin remember, I always wanted to exist a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the Us. Fifty-fifty before I first wandered into the cabstand for an afterwards-school job, I knew I wanted to be a part of them. It was there that I knew that I belonged. To me, it meant being somebody in a neighborhood that was full of nobodies. They weren't like anybody else. I mean, they did whatever they wanted. They double-parked in front of a hydrant and nobody e'er gave them a ticket. In the summer when they played cards all nighttime, nobody e'er called the cops.
• Paulie might've moved slow, but it was merely because Paulie didn't take to move for anybody.
• He knew what went on at that cab stand, and every one time in a while I'd have to accept a chirapsia. Simply by so I didn't care. The way I saw it everybody takes a beating sometime.
• Hundreds of guys depended on Paulie and he got a piece of everything they made. And it was tribute, only similar in the old country, except they were doing information technology here in America. And all they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip them off. And that's what it'due south all about. That's what the FBI could never understand. That what Paulie and the organization does is offer protection for people who can't become to the cops. That's it. That'due south all. They're like the police department for wiseguys.
• One day some of the kids from the neighborhood carried my mother's groceries all the fashion home. Y'all know why? It was outta respect.
• For united states to live any other mode was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day and worried nigh their bills were dead. I mean they were suckers. They had no assurance. If we wanted something, we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.
• Now the guy's got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the neb? He can go to Paulie. Problem with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy'southward gotta come up upwardly with Paulie's money every calendar week, no matter what. Concern bad? "Fuck you, pay me." Oh, y'all had a burn down? "Fuck you, pay me." Place got striking by lightning, huh? "Fuck you, pay me." Likewise, Paulie could do annihilation. Especially sew together bills on the joint's credit. And why non? Nobody'southward gonna pay for information technology anyhow. And as presently every bit the deliveries are fabricated in the front end door, y'all move the stuff out the back and sell information technology at a discount. You take a two hundred dollar case of booze and you sell it for a hundred. It doesn't matter. Information technology'southward all profit. And then finally, when there'due south nothing left, when you tin can't borrow another buck from the bank or buy another case of booze, you lot bust the articulation out. You light a match.
• For near of the guys, killings got to exist accepted. Murder was the only way that everybody stayed in line. You got out of line, you lot got whacked. Everybody knew the rules. But sometimes, even if people didn't get out of line, they got whacked. I mean, hits simply became a habit for some of the guys. Guys would get into arguments over naught and earlier yous knew it, 1 of them was dead. And they were shooting each other all the fourth dimension. Shooting people was a normal thing. Information technology was no big deal. Nosotros had a serious problem with Billy Batts. This was really a touchy affair. Tommy'd killed a made guy. Batts was part of the Gambino crew and was considered untouchable. Before you lot could touch a made guy, you had to take a good reason. You had to take a sitdown, and you better get an okay, or yous'd be the 1 who got whacked.
• Sabbatum night was for wives, merely Friday night at the Copa was always for the girlfriends.
• Come across, you know when y'all think of prison, you lot get pictures in your mind of all those old movies with rows and rows of guys behind bars...But it wasn't like that for wiseguys. It really wasn't that bad. Excepting that I missed Jimmy. He was doing his time in Atlanta...I hateful, everybody else in the joint was doing real fourth dimension, all mixed together, living like pigs. But we lived alone. And we owned the joint.
• [afterwards the Lufthansa heist] Information technology made him sick to have to plough coin over to the guys who stole it. He'd rather whack 'em. Anyway, what did I care? I wasn't asking for annihilation and likewise, Jimmy was making prissy money with me through my Pittsburgh connections. [showing a montage of expressionless gangsters] Simply still, months after the robbery they were finding bodies all over. [police surround a truck, open up it to come across a expressionless man hanging on a hook like a meat husk] When they found Carbone in the meat truck, he was frozen and then strong it took them 2 days to thaw him out for the autopsy.
• You know, nosotros always called each other goodfellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody, "You're gonna like this guy. He'south all right. He's a skilful fella. He's ane of us." You understand? Nosotros were goodfellas. Wiseguys. But Jimmy and I could never exist fabricated considering we had Irish blood. It didn't even matter that my mother was Sicilian. To go a member of a coiffure you've got to be one hundred per cent Italian then they can trace all your relatives back to the old land. Run across, it's the highest award they tin requite you. It means y'all belong to a family and crew. It ways that nobody can fuck effectually with you. It also means you could fuck around with anybody merely as long equally they aren't as well a member. Information technology's like a license to steal. Information technology's a license to practice annihilation. Every bit far as Jimmy was concerned with Tommy being fabricated, it was like we were all existence made. Nosotros would now have one of our own as a member.
• [about Tommy's murder] It was revenge for Billy Batts, and a lot of other things. And at that place was nix that we could do about it. Batts was a fabricated homo and Tommy wasn't. And nosotros had to sit all the same and have it. It was among the Italians. It was existent greaseball shit. They even shot Tommy in the confront and then his mother couldn't requite him an open coffin at the funeral.
• For a second, I thought I was dead, but when I heard all the noise I knew they were cops. Simply cops talk that mode. If they had been wiseguys, I wouldn't accept heard a affair. I would've been expressionless.
• If yous're part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they're going to kill you. It doesn't happen that fashion. There weren't whatsoever arguments or curses like in the movies. So your murderers come up with smiles. They come up equally your friends, the people who have cared for you all of your life, and they always seem to come at a time when you're at your weakest and well-nigh in need of their help.
• It was easy for all of united states to disappear. My firm and cars were either registered in the name of my wife or my mother in law. My driver'southward license and social security number were phony. I never voted; never paid taxes. My nativity certificate, arrest sheet, and my service record from the Army were all that existed to prove to the government I was ever alive.
• Meet, the hardest thing for me was leaving the life. I still love the life. And we were treated like movie stars with musculus. We had it all, but for the request. Our wives, mothers, kids, everybody rode along. I had paper bags filled with jewelry stashed in the kitchen. I had a sugar basin total of coke next to the bed. Anything I wanted was a phone phone call abroad. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I'd bet xx, xxx grand over a weekend then I'd either blow the winnings in a week or become to the sharks to pay back the bookies. Didn't matter. It didn't mean anything. When I was broke I would go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. Nosotros paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it'southward all over. And that's the hardest part. Today, everything is different. There's no action. I have to look around like anybody else. Can't even become decent food. Right subsequently I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I'm an average nobody. I go to live the rest of my life similar a schnook.

Karen Colina [edit]

• One night, Bobby Vinton sent us champagne. There was zero like information technology. I didn't call up in that location was annihilation strange in any of this. You know, a twenty-one-year-onetime kid with such connections. He was an heady guy. He was really nice. He introduced me to everybody. Everybody wanted to be squeamish to him. And he knew how to handle it.
• I know at that place are women, like my best friends, who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn't. I gotta acknowledge the truth. Information technology turned me on.
• Well, nosotros weren't married to nine-to-five guys, but the first fourth dimension I realized how different was when Mickey had a hostess party. They had bad skin and wore too much brand-upwardly. I hateful, they didn't look very good. They looked trounce-upwardly. And the stuff they wore was thrown together and inexpensive. A lot of pant suits and double knits. And they talked about how rotten their kids were and about chirapsia them with broom handles and leather belts. Only that the kids still didn't pay any attending...After a while, it got to be all normal. None of it seemed like crimes. It was more like Henry was enterprising and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling, while the other guys were sitting on their asses waiting for hand-outs. Our husbands weren't brain surgeons. They were blue-collar guys. The only way they could brand extra coin, real extra money, was to leave and cut a few corners...We were all so very shut. I mean, at that place were never any outsiders effectually. Admittedly never. And being together all the time fabricated everything seem all the more normal.
• We always did everything together and we e'er were in the same crowd. Anniversaries, christenings. We only went to each other'southward houses. The women played cards, and when the kids were born, Mickey and Jimmy were always the start at the hospital. And when we went to the Islands or Vegas to holiday, we always went together. No outsiders, ever. It got to be normal. It got to where I was even proud that I had the kind of married man who was willing to become out and risk his cervix just to go us the picayune extras.
• But still I couldn't hurt him. How could I hurt him? I couldn't even bring myself to exit him. The truth was that no affair how bad I felt I was nevertheless very attracted to him. Why should I requite him to someone else? Why should she win?

Dialogue [edit]

Jimmy: [To young Henry, afterward he gets cleared in court] Congratulations, here's your graduation present [Puts money in Henry's pocket]

Henry: For what? I got pinched.

Jimmy: Hey, everybody gets pinched, but you did it correct. Yous told 'em nothing and they got nothing.

Henry: I thought you'd exist mad.

Jimmy: I'g not mad, I'chiliad proud of ya. You lot took your kickoff pinch like a man, and you learned the two most important things in life. Yous listenin'? Never rat on your friends, and Always go along your mouth close. [Gives Henry an affectionate light slap on the cheek and leads him out of the courtroom. Outside, Paulie and many of the other gangsters are waiting for him.]

Paulie: Hey, you lot broke yer ruby-red! [The other gangsters cheer and congratulate Henry]

---

Henry: You're a pistol! Y'all're really funny. You lot're actually funny!

Tommy: What practise you mean I'm funny?

Henry: It's funny, you know. It's a good story, information technology's funny, you're a funny guy!

Tommy: [dangerously] What do you hateful? You mean the way I talk? What?

[Anybody becomes placidity]

Henry: It's just, you know, y'all're just funny. It's funny, the manner you tell the story and everything.

Tommy: Funny how? I mean, what's funny about it?

Anthony: Tommy, no, you got it all incorrect —

Tommy: Oh, oh, Anthony. He's a big boy, he knows what he said. [to Henry] What did ya say? Funny how?

Anthony: You're right.

Henry: Just —

Tommy: What?

Henry: Just, ya know, yous're funny.

Tommy: You hateful, allow me understand this, 'cause, ya know maybe it'due south me, I'chiliad a piffling fucked upward maybe, but I'm funny how? I hateful funny similar I'm a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'thou hither to fuckin' amuse you? What practise y'all mean funny? Funny how? How am I funny?

Henry: Just... y'all know, how you tell the story — what?

Tommy: No, no, I don't know. You said it! How practice I know? You lot said I'm funny. How the fuck am I funny? What the fuck is so funny about me?! Tell me, tell me what'southward funny!

[Long intermission]

Henry: Become the fuck out of here, Tommy!

[Everyone laughs]

Tommy: Ya motherfucker! I nearly had him, I almost had him! You stuttering prick, y'all! Frankie, was he shaking? I wonder about you sometimes, Henry. You may fold nether questioning!

---

Karen: [narrating] After awhile, information technology got to exist all normal. None of information technology seemed like crime. It was more like Henry was enterprising, and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling, while all the other guys were sitting on their asses, waiting for handouts. Our husbands weren't brain surgeons, they were blue-collar guys. The just mode they could make extra money, real extra money, was to go out and cutting a few corners.

[Cuts to Henry and Tommy hijacking a truck]

Tommy: Where's the strongbox, you lot fuckin' varmint?!

Karen: [narrating] We were all so very close. I mean, at that place were never any outsiders around. Absolutely never. And being together all the time made everything seem all the more normal.

---

Karen: [narrating, at a makeup political party with other wives] Information technology was crude seeing the wives of other gangsters. They did not accept intendance of themselves; they looked beat up and their faces were caked with makeup. Most of the time was spent talking about how rotten their kids were; how they decked them or whipped them with electric wiring and the kids nonetheless wouldn't pay attending. [subsequently in her sleeping room] I don't retrieve I can practise it, Henry.

Henry: Do what?

Karen: This whole thing. Jeannie said her married man was sent to jail. God forbid, what if that happened to you lot?

Henry: Bet she didn't tell you why her husband went in that location?

Karen: How come?

Henry: To go abroad from Jeannie! Karen, when it comes to the Mafia no one goes to jail unless they desire to. We beat the organization and I got it all figured out. I am organized; I got my shit together. Yous know who goes to jail? Nigger stickup men. Know why they get caught? Considering they fall asleep in the getaway motorcar.

---

Tommy: Simply don't get bustin' my balls, Baton, okay?

Billy: Hey, Tommy, if I was gonna break your balls, I'd tell you to become dwelling and become your shine box. [To his friends] At present this kid, this kid was great. They, they used to call him Spitshine Tommy. I swear to God! At present he'd make your shoes look similar fuckin' mirrors. 'Scuse my language. He was terrific, he was the all-time. He made a lot of money, too. Salud, Tommy!

Tommy: No more shines, Billy.

Billy: What?

Tommy: I said no more than shines. Maybe you didn't hear about it, you've been away a long fourth dimension; they didn't go up in that location and tell y'all. I don't shine shoes anymore.

Billy: Relax, will ya? Yous flipped right out, what's got into y'all? I'm breakin' your balls a footling fleck, that'southward all. I'm simply kiddin' with ya.

Tommy: Sometimes you lot don't sound like yous're kidding, you know? In that location'south a lotta people around...

Billy: Tommy, I'1000 only kiddin' with you. We're having a political party and I but came abode, and I haven't seen yous in a long fourth dimension, and I'grand breakin' your balls, and right away you're getting fuckin' fresh. I'chiliad deplorable, I didn't mean to offend yous.

Tommy: I'm sorry too. It's okay. No trouble.

Baton: Okay, salud. [moment of silence as he takes a drink] At present go home and get ya fuckin' shinebox!

Tommy: [smashes his glass in anger] Motherfuckin' mutt! You, you fuckin' piece of shit...! [Henry and Jimmy restrain him]

Baton: [taunting] Yeah, yes, yes, come on, come up on! Come up on! Let him go!

Tommy: Henry, he bought his fucking push! That faux old tough guy! You bought your fucking button! Continue that motherfucker here, continue him here! [leaves]

---

Tommy: Spider, that cast on your foot is bigger than your fucking head. Side by side thing you know he'll accept one of these fucking walkers. Simply you can still dance. Give the states a couple of fucking steps, Spider. You fucking bullshitter, y'all. Tell the truth. Y'all want sympathy, is that correct, sweetie?

Spider: Why don't you become fuck yourself, Tommy?

[Everyone, but Tommy, laughs]

Jimmy: I didn't hear right. I can't believe what I heard. [giving Spider cash] This is for you. I got respect for this child, he's got a lot of fucking balls. Expert for y'all! Don't have no shit off nobody! A guy shoots him in the foot, he tells him to go fuck himself. Tommy, you lot gonna allow this fucking punk get away with that? What's this world coming to?

Tommy: [continuing and shooting Spider] That'southward what the fucking earth's coming to, how exercise ya like that? How's that?

Henry: What is incorrect with you?!

Jimmy: What is the fucking affair with you?! What, are you stupid or what?! I was kidding with you lot. Are you a ill maniac?

Tommy: How practise I know you're kidding? You breaking my fucking balls?!

Jimmy: I'm fucking kidding with yous, yous fucking shoot the guy?!

Henry: [inspecting Spider on the floor] He's expressionless.

Tommy: [after a brief silence] I'm a proficient shot, what do you want from me?

Anthony: How could you lot miss at this distance?

Tommy: Yous got a problem with what I did, Anthony? Fucking rat, anyway. His family's all rats, he'd take grown up to be a rat.

Jimmy: Stupid bastard, I can't fucking believe yous. Now, you're gonna dig the fucking matter now. You're gonna dig the hole. I got no fucking lime, you're gonna practise it.

Tommy: Fine! I'll dig the fucking hole, I don't give a fuck. What is information technology, the commencement hole I e'er dug? I'll fucking dig the hole. Where are the shovels?

---

Paulie: [almost Henry's cheating] Karen came to the firm. She'southward very upset. This is no proficient; you gotta straighten this out. We gotta have calm.

Jimmy: Nosotros don't know what she'll do.

Paulie: She's hysterical. Very excited. She'due south wild. And you got to have it easy. Yous got children. I'one thousand not saying go back to her this minute, but you got to go back. You got to keep up appearances.

Jimmy: I got the two of them come to my house every day commiserating, the two of them. I just tin can't take it. I can't do it, Henry. I tin can't exercise it. Nobody says you lot can't do what yous want. We all know that. This is what it is. We know what it is. You have to do what'southward right. You take to go home to the family unit. You got to go abode, okay? Look at me. Y'all got to go dwelling house. Smarten up.

Paulie: I'll talk to Karen. I'll straighten this out. I know only what to say to her. I'll say you'll become dorsum to her and it'll be like when y'all first got married. I'll romance her. It'll be beautiful. I know how to talk to her, peculiarly to her. In the meantime, Jimmy and Tommy were going to Tampa this weekend. Instead y'all become with Jimmy.

Jimmy: You come with me.

Paulie: Have a adept time. Sit in the sun. Take a few days off.

Jimmy: We'll take a skilful time.

Paulie: After that, you'll get dorsum to Karen. In that location's no other way. No divorce. We're non animoli.

Jimmy: No divorce. She'll never divorce him. She'll impale him, but non divorce him. [they laugh]

---

Karen and her children are visiting Henry in jail

Guard: Mrs. Hill, this way. Sign this book, please.

Karen signs ledger but something catches her heart

Name of Inmate: Henry Loma

Name of Visitor: Janice Rossi

Visitor'south heart

Karen: I saw her, Henry.

Henry: What are you talking well-nigh?

Karen: I saw her name in the register.

Henry: Jesus Christ.

Karen: Yous desire her to visit you? Allow her stay upwards all nighttime, crying and writing letters to the parole board.

Henry: What am I doing here? Where am I? I'm in jail. I tin can't finish people from coming to see me.

Karen: Good. Permit her sneak this stuff every week. [Karen dangles a bag of illegal drugs in front him] Let her fight these bastards every week!

Henry: Look what you're doing! Stop information technology!

Karen: I'm sad. Let her sneak this shit in for you.

Henry: Will you lot stop it, Karen? Volition you finish information technology?

Karen: Let her do it! Allow her do it!

Henry: Terminate IT!!!

[Kids react to anger; Karen starts to sob]

Karen: Nobody is helping me. I am all lone. Belle and Morrie are broke. I asked your friend Remo for the money that he owes you lot, and you know what he told me? He told me to have my kids down to the constabulary station and get on welfare.

Henry: Karen, Information technology'southward going to be okay.

Karen: Aye? Even Paulie, since he got out, I've never seen him. I never run across anybody anymore.

Henry: It'south simply y'all and me. That's what happens when you go away. I told you that we're on our own. Forget everybody else. Forget Paulie. As long as he'south on parole, he doesn't want anybody doing anything.

Karen: I can't do it.

Henry: Yes, y'all can. Karen, Listen to me. All I need is for you to bring me this stuff. I got a guy in hither from Pittsburgh who'll assistance me move it. Believe me, in a month nosotros're gonna exist fine. Nosotros won't demand anybody.

Karen: I'chiliad afraid. I'm afraid if Paulie finds out...

Henry: Or I simply say, Don't worry about him. He is not helping us out. Is he putting any food on the table? We've gotta help each other. We've just gotta-- Mind, We've gotta be really careful while we do it.

Karen: I don't want to hear a discussion nearly her anymore, Henry.

Henry: Never.

---

Henry has merely been released from prison

Henry'southward Children: Daddy! Are you lot out for good? Are you coming to my recital? Here is a picture I drew!

Henry takes a wait at the depression-hire tenement his married woman and kids are looking in and reacts with disgust

Henry: Karen, go packed. We are moving out. I am going to Pittsburgh tommorow.

Karen: What? You have a meeting with your parole officeholder tommorow.

Henry: Don't worry, they owe me $fifteen,000. Who wants to go to Uncle Paulie'south?

Children cheer. Cut to Paulie's business firm where people have a big dinner. Later Paulie speaks to Henry in individual

Paulie: I practice not want any more of that shit.

Henry: I accept no thought what's going on hither.

Paulie: I mean the drugs! I do not want whatever more of that junk.

Henry: Paulie, why would I want to get mixed upwardly in that?

Paulie: Merely don't practice information technology. I am not talking near what you did in the tin. You lot get a pass for that. In in that location you had to practise what you lot had to practice to support your family. I am talking about hither and now. I do non want to end upwards like Gribbs. Gribbs got twenty years merely for saying practiced morning to some scuzz who was selling junk behind his back! Gribbs is 70 years old; the poor human being is going to die in prison house. So I am warning everyone, it could be my son, information technology could be anyone.

[Cut to Henry making cocaine]

Henry: [voiceover] It took me 2 weeks of sneaking the stuff around, but when I did, it was a existent score. In a month I had a down payment on my house and things were rolling. I knew equally long every bit the cash kept rolling in; Paulie would never detect out.

---

Henry: [sniveling] Paulie, I am really sorry.

Paulie: Yous fucked up adept. You looked me in the eye and treated me like shit; like I was nobody.

Henry: I couldn't come to you; non subsequently what you said to me. I was ashamed and so; I am aback now. I swear on my kids, I am clean. Just I got nowhere else to go. I could really employ some help now.

Paulie: Accept this.

[Paulie pulls a wad of cash out of his pocket and hands it to Henry]

Henry: Thank you.

Paulie: And now I have to plough my dorsum on you lot. There is no other way.

Henry: [narrating] My advantage for a lifetime of service to Paulie: $3,200. It was not even plenty to pay for my casket.

---

Henry enters a diner

Henry{as narrator}: I got there xv minutes early on, Jimmy was already in that location waiting for me.

Jimmy: All my life I said, practise non talk on the phone. Now you see why? Do non worry, I recollect you stand a skilful chance of beating this case.

Jimmy: At that place was a kid we knew, turned out to be a rat.

Henry: Actually?

Jimmy: Yeah. Found him hiding in Florida. How would y'all experience nearly going with Anthony, take care of that guy?

[Jimmy slips a message with data. Screen freeze-frames]

Henry: [narrating] Jimmy never asked me to whack a guy before. Now in the midst of all this he is asking me to get to Florida and practise a hit with Anthony? [Screen resumes] That is when I knew I would take never returned from Florida alive.

Taglines [edit]

• Three Decades of Life in the Mafia.
• "As far back as I tin call up, I've always wanted to exist a gangster."—Henry Hill, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1955.
• Murderers come with smiles.
• Shooting people was 'No large bargain'.
• In a earth that's powered by violence, on the streets where the trigger-happy have power, a new generation carries on an old tradition.

Cast [edit]

• Robert De Niro - Jimmy Conway
• Ray Liotta - Henry Hill
• Joe Pesci - Tommy DeVito
• Lorraine Bracco - Karen Hill
• Paul Sorvino - Paul Cicero
• Chuck Low - Morris 'Morrie' Kessler
• Christopher Serrone - Young Henry Loma
• Frank Sivero - Frankie Carbone
• Tony Darrow - Sonny Bunz
• Frank Vincent - Baton Batts
• Frank Adonis - Anthony Stabile
• Catherine Scorsese - Mrs. DeVito, Tommy'south Mother
• Gina Mastrogiacomo - Janice Rossi
• Suzanne Shepherd - Karen's Mother
• Debi Mazar - Sandy
• Kevin Corrigan - Michael Hill
• Charles Scorsese - Vinnie
• Michael Imperioli - Spider
• Tony Sirico - Tony Stacks
• Samuel Fifty. Jackson - Stacks Edwards
• Vincent Pastore - Man with Coat Rack
• Ray DeBenedictis - "Pete"
• Jerry Vale - Himself
• Henny Youngman - Himself

External links [edit]

• Goodfellas quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• Goodfellas at Rotten Tomatoes
• Goodfellas at Filmsite.org

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Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Goodfellas

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