New York Post reviewer Kyle Smith is taking a hit like in the gangster movie "GoodFellas" for saying in a piece on the film's 25th anniversary that women can't understand the 1990 Martin Scorsese film.
Smith's piece, posted online Wednesday, was in anticipation of the film's anniversary Blu-ray DVD and showing at New York City's Film Forum. Smith spent a considerable about of time trying to explain why he believed women did not like the film.
"Way down deep in the reptile brain, Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Jimmy the Gent (Robert De Niro) and Tommy (Joe Pesci) are exactly what guys want to be: lazy but powerful, deadly but funny, tough, unsentimental and devoted above all to their brothers – a small group of guys who will always have your back," Smith wrote. "Women sense that they are irrelevant to this fantasy, and it bothers them."
Smith said the characters in "GoodFellas" are heroes to men but "low lives" to women and women see their friendships in a different way. He said that while "'Sex and the City' girls" were into being "sympathetic and supportive," guys loved to "endlessly bust each other's balls."
In a response column, Scott Beggs of the website
FilmSchoolRejects.com wrote that he believes Smith was the one who did not understand the movie.
"The problem with Smith's assumption that a population numbering 3.5 billion can't quite grasp a gangster movie beyond the obvious idiocy, is that his own reading never gets below the surface level," Beggs wrote. "The film's fantastic animalism is worth focusing on, but the film is more than mere lizard brain escapism – its endurance and consistent re-examination is proof of that depth."
Smith was showered with criticism on social media.
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