Even though it was Jimmy (Robert De Niro) who uttered the words “never rat on your friends,” it was Tommy (Joe Pesci) who seemed like the most loyal guy in Goodfellas (which is a part of Warner Bros.’ Holiday Gift Guide). Sadly, the spirit of camaraderie left with Tommy after his untimely end, but in their glory days, no one was a more dedicated friend after all the truck hijacking, airport thefts, narcotics deals, extortion, and straight-up murder. So, as we go full-swing into the holiday season, here are a few quotes to remind you that Tommy was the kind of guy you wanted on your side.
“I asked you for a favor. I do a lot of f*cking favors for you, don’t I?”
Despite his well-deserved reputation of being a homicidal sociopath, Tommy comes off as downright reasonable here. After all, here he’s just a regular guy looking for a little bit of help from Henry. It’s not an unreasonable request, especially because Tommy had reminded Henry that he’d gone to bat for him time and again. Eventually, Henry relents and agrees to help out Tommy, even though he’s clearly not happy about it.
You know that you’re a good friend if you can get someone to go along on a double date with you just as a way to repay a favor.
“All he talked about was what a good time he had.”
As disinterested as Henry was after the first double-date, he straight-up ghosts Karen (Lorraine Bracco) during their second, which made her upset to the point that she makes Tommy track Henry down afterward. While Tommy agrees to the idea, it’s worth noting that he’d done nothing but attempt to try and make excuses about Henry throughout their awkward dinner for three. Just like any good friend would do.
“You may fold under questioning.”
The big finish to his notorious, “how am I funny?” moment, delivered after Henry finally calls him on his bluff and braces for impact. If you’re a good friend, you know how to bust balls and get the big laughs.
“I’ll f*ckin’ dig a hole. Where are the shovels?”
Tommy’s a good friend to have around, because even though he causes a lot of problems, it can’t be said that he’s not there to help clean up after every last one of them. Tell him he has to dig a hole, he just asks where the shovels are.
“Sure, Mom. I settle down with a nice girl every night. Then, I’m free the next morning!”
This speaks less to Tommy’s role as a friend and more to the fact that he was pretty good to his mom (Catherine Scorsese, director Martin Scorsese’s real-life mother). When she wakes up and sees Tommy and his two pals in her kitchen late at night looking for tools, before long they’re all sitting at the table having a meal. She even lets Tommy borrow one of her kitchen knives so that he can, in his own words, hack the ‘paw’ of a deer from the grill of his car.
“Where you going, you dizzy motherf*cker, you?”
Putting his earnest loyalty aside for a moment, Tommy always ends up flying off the handle. Such is the case here with Frankie Carbon (Frank Sivero), who ends up on the receiving end of another one of Tommy’s epic, profane rants after letting his car warm up, (the other being the ‘coffee to go’ incident). But then again, Tommy’s friendship was something that was strictly limited to, well, his friends, and to anyone who was on that shortlist (Henry and Jimmy, mostly), he proved himself to be the guy you’d want in your corner.
Hope you enjoyed our look back at Goodfellas. Our friends at Warner Bros. asked us to remind readers that the Goodfellas 25th Anniversary Blu-ray is available for purchase here.
