Scarface: The World is Yours

Scarface: The World is Yours

-Developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Vivendi Universal Games.
-Based on and is a quasi-sequel to the 1983 film starring Al Pacino.
-In the game, providing the voice of Tony Montana is not Al Pacino, but Andre Sogliuzzo.
-Released on PlayStation 2, PC, Xbox on Oct. 8, 2006 and on Wii on June 12, 2007

Plot
-The game begins in the film's final scene, with Tony(Andre Sogliuzzo) in his mansion office being raided by Alejandro Sosa's men. In a point of divergence from the movie, Tony kills the silent assassin, The Skull, that was to kill him with a shotgun. With the help of some of his surviving employees, Tony manages to escape.

-Sosa is then told that Tony's mansion has been seized by the police and DEA and that his massive drug empire is no longer. Hiding in a safehouse outside Miami, Tony regrets the choices he's made, and makes a vow to drop his cocaine addiction which led to his current situation. He then swears revenge on Sosa and promises to kill anyone who's in league with his enemy.

-3 months later, Tony returns to Miami. Everyone assumes he's dead, so all his assets have been divided up between the districts of Miami that he used to rule and have been given to the various drug cartels. His first thing to do: ask George Sheffield(James Woods) to become his lawyer again. Sheffield is hesitant to do it at first, but it's at a higher cost this time. Tony has no influence over him and accepts it.

-Starting off at the bottom again selling cocaine to personal dealers, Tony manages to get enough money to pay the police off to get his mansion back from Vice. He goes to see Gaspar Gomez(Cheech Marin) at his penthouse in Miami. He's not there, so Tony kills his head of security and many of his men, stealing a satellite phone for his use, hijacking an armored truck carrying $50,000. This enables him to open a bank account. This lets him recconnect with Jerry(Michael York), who has since been promoted and feeling unsafe, he agrees to help out Tony. He then manages to take over Little Havana, claiming all businesses and turfs, weakening the Diaz Cartel. While taking a break at the Babylon Club, Tony is attacked by armed gunmen who have been sent by the Diaz Brothers. One killer tells Tony that his mother has been killed. Fueled by rage, Tony goes to Diaz Motors and kills both of the brothers in rage and reclaims the territory.

-Pablo(Wilmer Valderrama), an associate of Sheffield, lures Tony to Freedom Town, where he first went when he came to the US, with the promise of information about his missing ex-wife Elvira. Unfortunately, this meeting is an ambush. Tony survives and hops into a speedboat to chase Pablo before killing him. Sheffield is added to his hit list. Then Downtown is the area he takes over next, taking over all businesses from the Contreras Cartel. He makes an ally with the Sandman, a cocaine producer from a set of Caribbean island south of Miami. He finds that Nacho Contreras is there as well, controlling a floating casino that was once an old freighter. Nacho escapes but Tony is there to kill him. As Nacho is swimming to an escape boat, Tony shoots him with an available sniper rifle and since he is bleeding, he is attracting sharks, which one eventually eats him. After Nacho is dead, Tony kills off the rest of the Contreras Cartel, taking another tanker belonging to Nacho, which he used to smuggle drugs into Miami. There are drugs galore on the tanker along with various ex-Nacho employees who work happily with Tony to establish a new supply line for cocaine

-Tony slowly but surely takes over North Beach and South Beach for his own reasons, fulfilling various business missions and taking over storehouses for distribution of drugs. He now controls Miami, as he once did, but supply lines are very weak. The Sandman says that he is going to war with his arch rivals, The Columbians. Tony helps him and drives the enemies away from the Islands. Before any celebrating can be done, the Columbians take over the small island of Tranquilandia, which is a small island owned by the Sandman and a very crucial base for the Montana Cartel. Tony takes it over, killing various armed gunmen and rescuing workers. The Islands are finally clear of any Columbians. The Montana Cartel's power begins to go up, and Tony becomes powerful once more. When he has realized he has gained enough power to go after Alejandro Sosa, he goes to Bolivia to kill him.

-Meanwhile, in Bolivia, Sosa is in the middle of a meeting with Sheffield and Gomez, talking about the problem of Montana. Then, as if by magic, Montana busts into the meeting. He moves through the various locations on the ground, killing off Sosa's men, one by one. He kills Sheffield, who was going to try and launch a rocket from a bazooka at Tony, and also shoots Gomez in a bedroom. When Tony confronts Sosa in his living room, they talk about the situation in New York. Tony tells Sosa that he refused to kill the journalist because he refused to kill a wife and her kids. Soon enough, Tony kills Sosa, making his revenge taken care of. When he finds one of Sosa's men still alive. The man, thinking Tony will kill him, begs for his life, and instead Tony gives him a job, which is a relief to the man.

-The man is now Tony's butler. The barkeep he talked to when he first arrived in the Islands, a woman named Venus, is now sitting with him in his hot tub as his new wife.

Black Rain

Black Rain

-1989 American action-thriller movie
-Starring Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, Kate Capshaw, Ken Takakura and Yusaku Matsuda
-Directed by Ridley Scott
-The movie centers on 2 New York City policemen who arrest a member of the Yakuza and have to escort him back to Japan. When they arrive, he escapes and they have somehow managed to get themselves in deeper and deeper into the Japanese underworld
-This film basically shows the stereotypes of American and Japanese cops and gangsters

Did You Know?
-The symbol at the end of the movie reads "kan" which in Japanese means "the end"

Plot
-Nick Conklin(Michael Douglas) is an accomplished motorcyclist and tough member of the New York police department, who just so happens to be facing criminal charges; Internal Affairs believes Nick was involved with his partner who was caught taking money in a corruption scandal. Nick is divorced from his wife, who has sole custody of their 2 kids. He also has financial issues due to child support and alimony.

-While having a drink at a local Italian restaurant/bar, Nick and his partner Charlie Vincent(Andy Garcia) see 2 Japanese men having what looks like friendly chit chat with some members of the Italian Mafia. Nick becomes increasingly suspicious of the group until another Japanese man walks in with several men armed with guns and takes a small package from the leader of the Japansese group. One of the Japanese men at the table says in Japanse "The Oyabun[godfather] will not stand for this." The Japanese leader then proclaims "As always, such a troublesome child." The Japanese man finds these to be insulting and he slashes the man's throat, stabs another in the chest and walks out. Nick and Charlie follow him and after chasing him, they arrest him after he nearly kills Nick

-The suspect turns out to be a member of the Yakuza[Japanese Mafia]. He is a gangster named Sato(Yusaku Matsuda). The problem is made worse when Nick's superior officer, Captain Oliver(John Spencer) tells him that Sato is to be extradited to Osaka and given to the police there. Nick is angered that Sato can't be tried for murder in the States, but agrees to take him to Japan. His captain also has another motive; he thinks this will keep Nick from causing more trouble and making the already bad situation with Internal Affairs worse by sending him overseas

-When the cop and gangster arrive in Osaka, men
identifying themselves as Japansese police immediately meet them on the plane, displaying a "Transfer document" written in Japanese and take Sato away. As Nick and Charlie leave the plane, another group of police enter from the front and identify themselves in English, saying the first "cops" were imitators

-Nick and Charlie go to the HQ of the Osaka Prefecture Police because they are to be questioned. They are blamed for Sato's escape. After arguments from Nick, who shows xenophobia towards the Japanese, who rarely know they can speak English. He and Charlie are allowed to "observe" the hunt for Sato. Unfortunately, the senior officer says they have no authority in Japan and it's illegal for them to carry guns, which are taken. They are assigned to Masahiro Matsumoto(Ken Takakura), a mellow, yet experienced officer who will be their guide

-Throughout their investigation, Nick behaves rudely, offending Matsumotot in various ways, while Charlie is more polite. Nick also makes contact with an American blond nightclub hostess, Joyce(Kate Capshaw), who explains that the Japanese public, including the giggly club hostesses, all think Charlie and Nick are not to be taken seriously because they allowed Sato to escape from custody and show American cops are stupid. Through her, Nick finds out that Sato is fighting a gang war with a very notorious crime boss, named Sugai(Tomisaburo Wakayama). Sato used to be a lieutenant for this man and now wants his own land to rule. Sato traveled to New York to interrupt a meeting with American Italian gangsters about a counterfeiting  plot made by Sugai

-After joining a police raid without permission, Nick takes some $100 bills. The next day, Matsumoto explains they have dishonored themselves, him and the police force by this theft, which has also been reported back to America. Nick claims that he should not have "snitched" to his bosses, and shows Matsumoto that the money was fake, as a suspicion he held and he needed to prove it by burning one of the bills

-Late one night, Nick and Charlie walk back to their hotel slightly drunk and unescorted, despite warnings about their safety. They are harassed by a young motorcycle punk and it seems to be funny until the punk steals Charlie's raincoat and leads them into an underground parking garage. Nick follows, shouting for Charlie to come back, but is separated from him by a security gate. Nick, unarmed, watches in horror as Sato and several of his Bosozoku gangsters torture Charlie using swords and knives, before Sato beheads him. Angered, Nick is comforted by Joyce at her apartment. Matsumoto arrives with Nick's stuff, including his NYPD badge, which Nick gives to Matsumoto and Charlie's service revolver, which Nick keeps

-Matsumoto and Nick trail one of Sato's operatives; a beautiful woman. Overnight, the police discuss their different cultures and Nick admits to Matsumoto he took some of the money in New York, where he says there is no black and white. In the morning, the woman retrieves a sample counterfeit note from a bank stronghold box. The note is only printed on one side, which she passes to Sato's gang. Nick and Matsumoto tail the man to a steel foundry where they find that Sato is meeting with Sugai, and finds that the package that Sato had taken in New York contains a printing plate for the American $100 bill. Nick intervenes when Sato leaves the meeting and starts a gunfight. Sato escapes again when Nick is arrested by police for waving a gun in public, and is told he is going to be sent back to New York in disgrace

-When Nick is boarding the plane, he manages to sneak off to find Sato on his own. He finds Matsumoto has been suspended and demoted by the police, which is considered a deep humiliation. Joyce helps him meet Sugai, who explains that making counterfeit U.S. currency is his revenge for the "black rain" after the bombing of Hiroshima and loss of dignity he and his family faced in the aftermath of World War II. Nick suggests an idea where Sugai can use Nick as an insignificant American to retrieve the stolen plate from Sato, leaving Sugai's reputation and hands clean

-Sugai drops Nick at the outskirts of a remote farm where a meeting of the oyabun, the other crime bosses, is going to be. Nick is given a shotgun, Sato arrives later as does Matsumoto. He and Nick conlcude that Sato's men are planning a massacre. At the meeting table, Sato surrenders his single plate and requests recognition and his own land. Unfortunately, Sugai demands that Sato first atone for his offenses against the Yakuza code of honor in the traditional way; he is ordered to cut off one of his fingers, which he obligingly does. As he takes position next to Sugai, he stabs the gangster in the hand and escapes with both plates, creating a gunfight between Sugai and Sato's men. Sato escapes the fight on a dirt bike with Nick following close behind. Nick is able to spill Sato off the bike and they fight. He gains the advantage. The scene ends with Nick having to decide whether or not to kill Sato as revenge for murdering Charlie.

-The film ends with Matsumoto and Nick walking a handcuffed Sato into police HQ to the surprise of everyone, and later getting recommendation. Nick accepts it happily. Before boarding his flight home, he thanks Matsumoto for his help and friendship and gives him a box containing a dress shirt. Underneath it is the 2 counterfeit printing plates.

Cast

• Michael Douglas as Nick Conklin
• Andy García as Charlie Vincent
• Ken Takakura as Masahiro Matsumoto^[1]
• Kate Capshaw as Joyce
• Yusaku Matsuda as Sato
• Shigeru Kôyama as Ohashi
• John Spencer as Oliver
• Guts Ishimatsu as Katayama
• Yuya Uchida as Nashida
• Tomisaburo Wakayama as Sugai
• Miyuki Ono as Miyuki
• Luis Guzmán as Frankie (as Luis Guzman)
• John Costelloe as The Kid (as John A. Costelloe)
• Stephen Root as Berg
• Richard Riehle as Crown

Production Notes
-Jackie Chan was the original choice to play Sato, but turned it down because it went against his good guy values
-Japanese actor Yusaku Matsuda was suffering from bladder cancer during the making of this movie and died right after the movie was made. The movie was then dedicated to his memory

Casino (1995)

Casino

-Made in 1995
-Directed by Martin Scorsese
-Based on non-fiction book of the same name by Nicholas Pileggi

Did You Know?
-The F word is said 422 times, and the film holds a Guiness World Record for most swearing in a movie
-Sharon Stone had back problems from an old injury and the gold and white beaded gown she wears during a casino scene weighed 45 pounds
-The jewelry store Nicky robs is an actual Las Vegas jewelry store. The line "I just got a shipment of diamonds from Israel" was not scripted
-The character K.K. Ichikawa was actually based on Akio Kashiwagi. He was a Japanese high roller during the 70s and 80s and was a big scene at Las Vegas casinos. By the end of the 1980s, he had used up all his casino credit, owing many casinos, millions of dollars. He was eventually murdered in his Tokyo home by the Yakuza(Japanese Mafia) in 1992.
-In the movie, Nicky is placed in the black book. In real life, Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, the person De Niro's character is based on, is the one really in the black book.
-The gray haired hitman in the sunglasses at the end of the movie was a real life mob member. His name is Frank Culotta. He is portrayed by Frank Vincent. Culotta was the chief lieutenant of Tony Spilotro in the 1970s and 1980s and entered the Witness Protection Program before the conrfield incident took place and was not present, unlike Marino.
-Robert De Niro has appeared in at least 3 movies that use the song Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones in the soundtrack: Casino(1995), The Fan(1996) and Goodfellas(1990)

-Robert De Niro stars as Sam "Ace" Rothstein, a Jewish-American gambling handicapper who is called by the Mob to oversee daily business at the fictional Tangiers casino in Las Vegas. The story is based on Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust, Fremont adn Hacienda casinos in Las Vegas for the Chicago Outfit from the 1970s until the early 1980s.
-Joe Pesci plays Nicky Santoro, Sam's hot tempered, hair trigger tempered friend, based on real life mob enforcer Anthony Spilotro. Nicky is sent to Vegas to make sure no one messes with Sam or skim money off the top from the Tangiers and that the mobsters in Vegas are keeping their toes in line.
-Sharon Stone plays Ginger McKenna, Ace's wife.
-In the scene where Nicky and his brother Dominick are beaten and buried in a cornfield, that actually happened. The real guys, Anthony Spilotro and his brother really were beaten and buried in an Indian cornfield in 1986.

Plot
-Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is a sports handicapper and mob associate who is sent to Vegas to run the Teamsters-funded Tangiers Casino on behalf of several midwest mob families. Sam becomes the Tangier's boss, while taking advantage of the gaming laws allowing him to work while his gaming license is being considered. He doubles the Tangier's profits which are skimmed by the Mafia before the records are reported to the income tax people. Because the bosses are impressed by Sam's work, they send Sam's friend, mob enforcer and caporegime Nicholas "Nicky" Santoro (Joe Pesci) and his gang, which includes Frank Marino (Frank Vincent) to protect Sam and the whole casino. Nicky, unfortunately, becomes more of a problem than solution as his aggressive attitude quickly gets him barred from virtually every casino in Vegas and his name into the black book, which has only one name in it, Alphonse "Scarface" Capone. With his name in the black book, Santoro's name has been grilled into the mind of virtually every police officer and FBI agent and other law enforcement officers. So Nicky then gathers his own crew and begin running burglaries from other businesses and houses.

-Sam, however, meets and falls in love with Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone), who is a hustler. Despite her hesitance, they soon marry and conceive a daugher, Amy. Their relationship takes a turn for the worse when Ginger is caught by Sam and Nicky aiding her former boyfriend, a con man named Lester Diamond (James Woods). Sam also makes an enemy out of Clark County Commissioner Pat Webb (L.Q. Jones) by firing Webb's brother in law Donald Ward (Joe Bob Briggs) from the casino for not doing his job right. Sam refuses to rehire him, despite pressure from Webb to do so. Webb gets payback by pulling Sam's casino license application from the backlog, forcing Sam to have a license hearing, while seeing to it that gaming board and State Senator Harrison Roberts of the State of Nevada (Dick Smothers) to reject the application. Sam responds by appearing on TV and openly accuses the city government of corruption. The bosses, angry at this, ask him to return home. But he refuses and stubbornly blames Nicky's lawbreaking for his mess. In a heated argument in the desert, Nicky tells Sam to never "go over his head" again.

-The bosses hire Kansas City mob underboss Artie Piscano to run the skim and reduce the amount local mobsters are keeping for themselves. But with his big mouth, he keeps incriminating ledgers and is caught on an FBI bug discussing the skim of money from the casino. Sam almost loses patience with Ginger after she and Lester are in L.A. with plans to run away to Europe with his daughter Amy. He talks Ginger into bringin Amy back, but Ginger's drug addictions anger him so much that he kicks her out of the house. She returns, on Sam's word that she carry a beeper at all times to contact her when he needs to. Ginger turns to Nicky for help in getting her share of the money from her and Sam's shared bank account, and they begin a sexual affair, which according to mob rule could get the 2 of them killed, along with Nicky's crew for covering it up. Sam reaches the boiling point with Ginger when she ties Amy to her bedposts to have a night out with Nicky. Sam tracks her down and finds her in Nicky's restaurant The Leaning Tower and he confronts her and disowns her. She turns to Nicky, but he has reached his limit with her too. The next morning, Ginger goes to Sam's house, creating a domestic disturbance, and uses the distraction to get the key to the safe where their money is. She takes some of the savings, but then is arrested by FBI agents

-Wth Ginger arrested and the FBI's discovery of Piscano's records, which are then matched with skimming operation, the casino crumbles beneath everyone's feet and the bosses are arrested. During a meeting, they decide to cut all ties and eliminate everyone who was involved to keep them from testifying. This includes the head of the teamsters and several casino executives. At the same time, Ginger dies practically poor in L.A. of a drug overdose and Sam is almost killed in car bomb, which he suspects Nicky planted. Nicky and his brother Dominick are called to a meeting in a cornfield after all the heat in the city blew down. Upon arriving, they are held down and beaten to within an inch of their lives with aluminum bats by Frankie and his gang before being buried alive. Sam narrates that the bosses were fed up with Nicky and his lawbreaking in Vegas, and ordered Frankie and the gang to "make an example" of him and his brother

-With the mob out of power, the old casinos are bought by big companies and torn down to make way for gaudy casinos bought with junk bonds. Sam laments that the new "family friendly" Las Vegas lacks the same glitz and glamour it once had, and lacks the same kind of catering to players the old Las Vegas had. In the final scene, it shows an older Sam living in San Diego, once again a sports handicapper for the mob, or in his words "...right back where I started."

Cast
Robert De Niro: Sam "Ace" Rothstein
-Based on: Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal

Joe Pesci: Nicholas "Nicky" Santoro
-Based on: Tony "The Ant" Spilotro

Sharon Stone: Ginger McKenna
-Based on: Geraldine McGee Rosenthal

Frank Vincent: Frank Marino
-Based on: Frank Culotta

Don Rickles: Billy Sherbert
-Based on: Murray Ehrenberg

Pasquale Cajano: Remo Gaggi
-Based on: Joseph Aiuppa

James Woods: Lester Diamond
-Based on: Leonard "Lenny" Marmor

Kevin Pollack: Philip Green
-Based on: Allen Glick

Alan King: Andy Stone
-Based on: Allen Dorfman

Philip Suriano: Dominick Santoro
-Based on: Michael Spilotro

Vinny Vella: Artie Piscano
-Based on: Carl "Tuffy" DeLuna

Joseph Rigano: Vincent Borelli
-Based on: Nicholas Civella

Nobu Matsuhisa: K.K. Ichikawa
-Based on: Akio Kashiwagi

Soundtrack
Disc one

1. "Contempt – Theme De Camille" by Georges Delerue
2. "Angelina/Zooma, Zooma Medley" by Louis Prima
3. "Hoochie Coochie Man" by Muddy Waters
4. "I'll Take You There" by The Staple Singers
5. "Nights in White Satin" by The Moody Blues
6. "How High The Moon" by Les Paul & Mary Ford
7. "Hurt" by Timi Yuro
8. "Ain't Got No Home" by Clarence 'Frogman' Henry
9. "Without You" by Nilsson
10. "Love Is the Drug" by Roxy Music
11. "I'm Sorry" by Brenda Lee
12. "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac
13. "The Thrill Is Gone" by B.B. King
14. "Love Is Strange" by Mickey & Sylvia
15. "The 'In' Crowd" by Ramsey Lewis
16. "Stardust" by Hoagy Carmichael

[edit] Disc two

1. "Walk on the Wild Side" by Jimmy Smith
2. "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)" by Otis Redding
3. "I Ain't Superstitious" by Jeff Beck Group
4. "The Glory of Love" by The Velvetones
5. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by Devo
6. "What a Diff'rence a Day Made" by Dinah Washington
7. "Working in the Coal Mine" by Lee Dorsey
8. "House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals
9. "Those Were the Days" by Cream
10. "Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)" by Tony Bennett
11. "Slippin' and Slidin'" by Little Richard
12. "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" by Dean Martin
13. "Compared to What" (Live) by Les McCann & Eddie Harris
14. "Basin Street Blues/When It's Sleepy Time Down South" by Louis Prima
15. "St. Matthew Passion (Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder)" by Johann Sebastian Bach (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Georg Solti)

Goodfellas

Goodfellas

-Made in 1990
-One of my favorite mob movies, although I've certainly seen it enough times to watch it in my mind at night!
-Directed by Martin Scorsese
-Film adaptation of the 1986 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi
-Follows the fall and rise of Luccese crime family associates Henry Hill and his friends over a period of time from 1955-1980

Did You Know?
-The F word is used approximately 296 times, mostly by Joe Pesci
-Joe Pesci's mother saw the film, said it was good, and asked her son if he had to swear so much
-Joe Pesci's portrayal of Tommy De Vito was 90-99% accurate, except for the fact that the real Tommy De Vito was a muscularly built man
-Al Pacino was the original choice for the role of Jimmy Conway, but turned it down due to fear of typecasting.
-According to Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro and Nancy Sinatra put a fake horse's head in Liotta's makeup room as a prank. It was a homage to the Godfather films and also as an introduction into the Mafioso films
-The soundtrack for the movie did not feature many of the songs used in the movie, many of them being played while Henry was rushing around making drug deals, like:
  1. Jump Into the Fire: Nilsson
  2. Memo from Turner: The Rolling Stones
  3. Magic Bus: The Who
  4. Monkey Man: The Rolling Stones
  5. Mannish Boy: Muddy Waters
  6. What is Life: George Harrison
  7. Mannish Boy again
  8. Toad: Cream
-For the pistol whipping scene, Liotta used the anger of his mother dying from cancer during filming to fuel the anger
-The character Joe Pesci played, Tommy De Vito, was supposed to be in his 20s, even though Pesci himself was in his 40s
-During the scene where his character is killed by Tommy, Michael Imperioli broke a glass and had to be rushed to the hospital. When the doctors saw it was a gunshot wound, they tried to treat it. When Imperioli told them how it happened, he had to wait 3 hours. And Scorsese told him that he'd be telling that story later on and it came true in March 2000 when he was on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno
-In the scene where Spider is killed, it was mostly improvised. The only scripted line was where Spider says to Tommy "Why don't you go f--- yourself?"

Plot
-Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) admits in his own words "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster" referring to him idolising the Luccese crime family in his blue collar working class, predominantly Italian American neighborhood of East New York, Brooklyn in 1955. He wanted to be part of something bigger, so Henry quits school and goes to work for them. His Irish-American father, well aware of the Mafia's reputation, tries to steer Henry away from them after learning he has been skipping school. But then the gangsters he works for threaten the local mailman with death threats after delivering a notice to Henry's house letting his parents know he's been skipping school. Henry is now able to make money for himself, and learns what it takes to be a wiseguy, 2 very valuable lessons: "Never rat on your friends" and "Always keep your mouth shut". These 2 rules acquit him of charges early in his life

-The local mob capo Paul "Paulie" Cicero (Paul Sorvino) takes Henry under his wing and introduces him to his associates, Jimmy "The Gent" Conway (Robert De Niro), who just loves to hijack trucks and Tommy De Vito (Joe Pesci), a hot headed aggressive robber who lives life on a short fuse. In late 1967, they commit the Air France Robbery, marking Henry's debut into the mob life. Enjoying the highlights of mob life, they spend their nights at the Copacabana with many women. That's where Henry meets and later marries Karen (Lorraine Bracco), a Jewish girl from the Five Towns. Karen is initially startled by Henry's mob life, but is soon seduced by his lifestyle. When a neighbor assaults her for turning down his sexual advances, Henry pistol whips him in front of her and she feels turned on by that, especially when Henry gives her the gun and tells her to hide it.

-June 11, 1970: Tommy (with Jimmy's help) brutally beat Billy Batts (Frank Vincent), a mobster with the Gambino mob family, for insulting him about being a shoeshine boy when he was younger. However, Batts was a made man and according to mob rule, that is a no-no. Batts could not be touched without the consent of the Gambino mob family. Finally realizing this could get them all killed, Jimmy, Henry and Tommy need to cover up the murder. So they transport the body upstate in the trunk of Henry's car and bury it upstate. 6 months later, Jimmy learns that the burial site will be developed which means that if the body is found, it will be exhumed, forcing them to move the body.

-Soon, Henry begins seeing a woman named Janice Rossi (Gina Mastrogiacomo), setting her up in an apartment. When Karen finds out, she goes to Janice's apartment to confront her, but is not let past the front door. She confronts Henry, pointing a revolver at him and threatens to kill both of them, demanding to know if he truly loves her or Janice. Karen can't bring herself to kill Henry and angered, Henry threatens Karen with the gun and says that he has bigger problems. Henry goes to live in the apartment with Janice and soon Paulie finds out and directs him back to Karen after doing a job for him; Henry and Jimmy are sent to collect from an indebted gambler in Florida, where they succeed after beating him to a pulp. However, most of the crew are arrested after being turned in by the gambler's sister, a typist for the FBI.

-In prison, Henry begins to sell drugs to support his family. Soon he is released in 1978, the crew commits the Lufthansa heist at the John F. Kennedy International Airport. Despite Paulie's warning to stop, Henry further establishes himself in the drug world, convincing Tommy and Jimmy to join. Jimmy has other members of the Lufthansa heist killed after they ignore his order to not buy expensive things with their share of the money. Then Tommy is killed for the murder of Billy Batts, having been fooled into thinking he is going to be made.

-By 1980, Henry is in a nervous breakdown from insomnia and cocaine use, as he tries to organize a drug deal with his associates in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, the DEA catches him and sends him to jail. On his release, Karen tells him that she flushed the $60,000 worth of cocaine down the toilet to avoid being caught by the FBI. This leaves Henry and his family virtually penniless. Feeling Henry betrayed him by dealing drugs, Paulie gives Henry $3,200 and ends his connection with him. Henry decides to enroll in the Witness Protection Program after realizing that Jimmy intends to have him murdered. Forced out of his mobster life, he comes to the realization "I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook."

-As the movie ends, the titles explain that Henry was subsequently arrested on drug charges in Seattle, Washington but has been clean since 1987. Paul Cicero died in Fort Worth Federal Prison of respiratory illness in 1988 at age 73. Jimmy, as of 1990, was serving a 20-to-life sentence in a New York State prison (died in prison in 1996)

Cast
-Ray Liotta: Henry Hill, based on Henry Hill
-Robert De Niro: Jimmy Conway, based on Jimmy Burke
-Joe Pesci: Tommy De Vito, based on Thomas DeSimone
-Lorraine Bracco: Karen Hill, based on Karen Hill
-Paul Sorvino: Paul Cicero, based on Paul Vario
-Frank Sivero: Frankie Carbone, based on Angelo Sepe
-Frank Vincent: Billy Batts, based on William "Billy Batts" Devino
-Tony Darrow: Sonny Bunz, based on Angelo McConnach
-Mike Starr: Frenchy, based on Robert "Frenchy" McMahon
-Chuck Low:  Morrie Kessler, based on Martin Krugman
-Frank DiLeo: Tuddy Cicero, based on Vito "Tuddy" Vario
-Samuel L. Jackson: Parnell "Stacks" Edwards, based on Parnell Steven "Stacks" Edwards
-Catherine Scorsese: Tommy De Vito's mom, based on Thomas DeSimone's grandmother
-Michael Imperioli: Spider, based on Michael "Spider" Gianco
-Joseph Bono: Mikey Franzese, based on Michael Franzese