Wiseguy

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Henry believes that his wiseguy friends are invulnerable, as indeed they seem to be. In this insular neighborhood, even the legitimate businessmen are willing to cover for their wiseguy neighbors who are admired as entrepreneurs and are unafraid to bend the rules. Wiseguys offer an alternative to scraping out an honest living in difficult economic times; many otherwise honest men and women are willing to accept a bribe now and again to earn a little extra money. Many judges, lawyers, and policemen are also on the wiseguys' payroll. Given these role models, it is no surprise Henry grows up to believe that honesty is for the weak and vulnerable; he perceives law-abiding citizens as fools, as prey. Martin Scorsese turned the biography of a New York hoodlum, Henry Hill, into a cinematic masterpiece

Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family is a 1985 non-fiction book by crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi that chronicles the life of Henry Hill, a Mafia associate turned informant. The book is the basis for the 1990 Academy Award–winning film Goodfellas directed by Martin Scorsese. [1] [2] [3] Summary [ edit ] Hill didn’t feel sorry about the crimes he’d committed, so much as the high life he’d left behind. "He was grieving for the life he’d lost – he loved being a gangster," says Pileggi. "He loved being with those guys. They were his family." This was his main source of regret. "He felt awful because he had to give up the life he really wanted to live. He could no longer be a gangster." Pileggi co-wrote the pilot of the CBS television series Vegas, which first aired in September 2012. [2] Personal life [ edit ]

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What amazed me most is how closely the movie aligns with the book, because let’s be honest people, Hollywood screenwriters have butchered many a book. A lot of Ray Liotta’s, um, I mean Henry Hill’s classic one liners and pithy monologues are straight from the book. Much of the praise for the movie belongs to Pileggi; like the film, Wiseguy is entertaining from start to finish. It’s nonstop. A thriller and absolute banger right to the very end. Oh how I loved it. FIVE STARS! Henry sees no reason to change his lifestyle. He enjoys the fruits of other people's labor, taking over and bankrupting in weeks legitimate business that others have worked their entire lives to create. For Henry, there are no consequences. No matter how many businesses and personal fortunes he destroys for his own gain, there is always someone else out there to be lied to, stolen from, or conned. Even when Henry gets ten years in prison, he bribes all manner of guards and officials to get out after four years, and those four years are spent in relative luxury. Karen spends this time in a small, shabby apartment, supporting herself and the children even while helping Henry carry out his schemes so he can continue to live in the style to which he is accustomed. For anyone who hasn’t seen GoodFellas (or read Wiseguy), Hill was an Irish-Italian New Yorker who became a small-time gangster as a teenager, and grew up to become involved in many of the Mob’s illegal enterprises.

For Pileggi, the portrayal of Hill in GoodFellas felt entirely authentic. " Ray Liotta nailed him. He had that charm, he was good-looking, and people just liked him. He wasn’t cold. He didn’t come on like a tough guy." Pileggi assumed they’d be arrested. He assumed wrong. "Not a thing happened! Nothing ever came of it!" For Hill, this was normal. Clearly, there was something about him which made the Maitre D' decide it’d be best to let the matter drop. The book “Wiseguy” is about Henry Hill a member of the Lucchese crime family.The book itself tells a different perspective of the “Mob”. Its seen through the eyes of Nicholas Pileggi the author but told to by Hill himself . It displays an interesting outlook,Mob movies books characters have fascinated the world for so long and its the belief that their is another world more exhilarating and exciting fast paced and the common person is just looking to escape the real world into a book or another life. That’s why the really tough guys went along with him – he was always looking to make money for them." What made Wiseguy such a thrilling read was Hill’s incredible memory. He was a natural storyteller, with a novelistic eye for detail.urn:lcp:wiseguy00nich_aso:epub:1228e7a8-2712-43a3-bf07-6eadd713a8d9 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier wiseguy00nich_aso Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t1kh2tv9r Invoice 11 Isbn 0671447343 Nicholas Pileggi's non fiction book, ' Wiseguy', is the basis for the film, GoodFellas, directed by Martin Scorsese (1990). It's the true story of Henry Hill, a member of the Lucchese organised crime family in New York. Henry's heyday takes place during the 1960s and 1970s when he works under the protection of mob boss Paul Vario in the Brownsville-East New York section of Brooklyn.

Paulie offers Henry the opportunity to buy into a gambling ring with the Air France money, and Henry's new wife, Karen encourages him to buy a restaurant to provide for their growing family with a legitimate source of income. Henry does both of these things, and involves himself in dozens of other schemes as well. Henry works hard and plays harder, spending as many nights with girlfriends, prostitutes, and drinking buddies as with his wife and children. Henry is pinched by the police a few times over the years, but invariably buys himself out of trouble with Paulie's support. His children learn to consider his arrests and police searches of their home as routine occurrences. Karen is unfailingly loyal, helping him provide for the family in both his legal and illegal schemes. This is not to suggest that ' Wiseguy' (aka ' GoodFellas') is anything other than a good book, it’s just that the film is a masterpiece, and so much more than just this book brought to life on the screen. Pileggi, Nicholas (1985). Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family (Firsted.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-72322-4.So what sort of man was Henry Hill? "He was a hustler. He wasn’t a mean man, he wasn’t a violent man – not that he wouldn’t commit violence – but he was hyperactive, and always into mischief." He was also very clever, with a genius for thinking up moneymaking scams.

Nobody had written much about Organised Crime before. The subject became Pileggi’s speciality, and when the publishers Simon & Schuster bought the rights to Henry Hill’s life story, Pileggi was a natural choice to write it.GoodFellas' is an amazing tale, and a wonderful evocation of a bygone era but is one of those rare occasions where the film is all you really need. I waited for this book for a long time. Watched my favorite movie "Goodfellas" based on this book several times. So when I got the hard copy of the book, I could not resist myself finishing it at once. It is As good as the movie. But if someone watches the movie, the book is waste of time in my opinion. The movie is a total honest representation of the book. But my case is different. I love to read about Mafia. :) When he was arrested for a range of offences, including drug-dealing (which his Mob bosses had told him to stay away from), he agreed to testify against his fellow ‘wiseguys’ and was given a new identity, under the US government’s Witness Protection Program. This was where Pileggi came in.