But it also means that Scorsese has us from the opening moments. It’s brilliant casting, not just in those roles, but throughout. Their drive to stay alive and stay on top, and the damage they have inflicted on themselves as well as on other people as they age, can be read in their faces as the film progresses. Although, to be honest, terror is still my overriding emotion, particularly when Joe Pesci appears on screen. Robert De Niro plays Jimmy and Joe Pesci plays Tommy (the surnames are different in the film), and they bring immediate appeal that gives way to a depth of emotion. Here’s where the film has a real advantage. In Wiseguy we don’t meet these incidental characters immediately. He sees they are dangerous, but he walks the tightrope of appeasing them and watching out for himself so successfully that he really does seem to be untouchable for a while. Mafia boss Paul Vario takes him under his wing, and he becomes part of a crew that includes very frightening people such as Jimmy Burke and Tommy DeSimone. He can make money at just about anything without stepping on the toes of important people. Henry survives, and thrives, in an environment that kills many, and he has an amazing street-sense. It’s those personal accounts that really drag the reader in, and the screenplay for the film (co-written by Scorsese and Pileggi) lifted the best lines directly from the book, along with using some improvised lines from the cast.
His wife Karen is also heard from directly, to add another dimension – what it’s like to marry into the Mafia family. Pileggi’s factual, clear style provides the framework of the book and then we also have Henry’s smooth and engaging voice. Hill told everything to Pileggi during a series of meetings that took place in high secrecy, once Hill and his family were established in their new identities. So Wiseguy is the life story of Henry Hill, a mobster from the 1950s to the 1980s who got caught and eventually turned evidence against his friends in exchange for entry into a Witness Protection Programme – because his friends would have undoubtedly killed him, just as they killed everyone else who threatened their way of life.
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