A Bronx Tale, Goodfellas, The Godfather

Compare and Contrast- Although all three are italian mob movies, there are significant differences.  Unlike A Bronx Tale and Goodfellas, The Godfather is primarily about family.  Its all about mob wars between different families where the story surrounds the Corleone family.  By blood relation you are automatically assumed to have a role in the mob.  The only complete trust is between family members.  A Bronx Tale is about a specific mob in that neighborhood.  Everyone in the neighborhood, no matter how young, recognizes the members of the mob.  Different from the other two films, has a side that concentrates on a main character not in anyway involved in the mob.  Robert De Niro's character strongly disapproves in his son C's relationship with the head of the mob.  He tries to influence him that a man who works hard and earns money through a job is a real man, not one who steals and kills.  The film Goodfellas is more about the friendships within a mob.  Jimmy, Henry, and Tommy form a close bond and stick together.  It also deals with drugs very strongly in the storyline.  A similarity of the three that stood out the most to me (other then the obvious of all being italian) was that if someone in the mob didnt trust you, you dont have a chance of living.  People were killed off like it was nothing if they were suspicious in any way.  Other similarities are the loyalty, fear, and power that comes with the mob.

Stereotyping- The stereotyping the the films is very evident.  They are all very stereotypical huge, italian family.  Stereotyping is most obvious in A Bronx  Tale where C cant be friends with or date a black girl.  The African Americans are the opposite of C and his friends who also live on the opposite sides of town.  It also stresses how all Italians are completely loyal to their family.  Also in Goodfellas, Tommy is the stereotypical angry italian who curses every three seconds.  If he gets the tiniest bit angry, he'll start a brawl or just shoot and kill you for making a disrespectful remark.

The True Story of Goodfellas- Goodfellas is the true story based on the novel Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi.  The author is a crime reporter who tells the story of Henry Hill's life.  The film very closely follows the true events in the book except for a few minor changes and some names have changed.  Every event happened and took place in that time period as depicted in the film.