Narration As Seduction

Where The Godfather is about a dynasty, this is about employment. Henry Hill narrates his own career the way people describe a good job they once had, with enthusiasm for the perks and no interest in the ethics, and Scorsese matches that tone with freeze frames, jump cuts, needle drops and a camera that never stops moving. The Copacabana shot, three minutes unbroken from a car through a kitchen to a table placed at the front, exists to make the audience feel what Henry is selling. Then the film's second half withdraws it all: the same energy applied to a single paranoid day in 1980, helicopters overhead, sauce on the stove, a narration that has become a man talking too fast. It ends with the worst punishment the film can imagine, which is having to live like everybody else.