Warning: Video contains explicit language
Even in the balanced-budget 1990s, some men believed that "being a gangster was better than being President of the United States." Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) in Goodfellas was one of them — the most pugnacious member of a pretty violent trio. In his early days, Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) needed a fixture to propel him from small-crime signore to big-time tattle. Sure, Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) could talk a good game. But when it came to groom Brooklyn's newest gangster, what better role model was there than a man willing to both fire the gun and grab the shovel, a man who could switch from funny to frightening and back to funny in the blink of an eye, as he does in this scene.