Always interesting to see the same story told from 2 entirely different perspectives. In Goodfellas Henry Hill and co are depicted as 'moviestars with muscle' who have a great time of it but pay the price through brutality, both that which they are forced to dole out in the course of their profession and that which they suffer at the hands of one another, your friends aren't your friends and will gladly slit your throat if they think there's $5 in it for them. In 'The Big Heist' they're depicted as a bunch of deadbeats for whom Jimmy was the undoubted brains and were floundering without him. They're also a lot less violent than they're depicted to be in Goodfellas, we see little of Tommy's famous explosive temper or Jimmy's cold-heartedness, indeed they both seem to be extremely reluctant to get any blood on their hands, Tommy trying to protect Stacks and Jimmy not hating Morrie. Another shock is that Henry Hill seems to be bisexual which is certainly a detail which he didn't put in his autobiography.Some great disco music and seventies attention to detail and Donald Sutherland is very good in the central role. His Irish accent is a bit dodgy but then he's playing an Irish-American character rather than an actual Irishman so it should be a mishmash. Interestingly the actor who portrays Tommy is a lot more like the real person than Joe Pesci who made the role his own, a strapping six footer rather than a diminutive fireplug.In the end of course this is a simple morality tale, the Lufthansa heist should have been the highpoint of their criminal careers and set them up for life but instead it tears them apart. Jimmy dies in prison, betrayed by Henry and with his friends and even his son either imprisoned or dead. The authorities may never have got the money back but ultimately crime doesn't pay.

"The Big Heist" is a small time flick about a small time mob boss (Sutherland) and his crew. Whether this tv film for A&E was based on a true story is irrelevant. It isn't gonna get any better than a low budget schlock flick either way. This marginally interesting story, which can't be taken seriously, wanders between comedy and drama as it fiddles around with boring details then sprints to its anticlimactic conclusion before running out of gas. Mediocre fodder for sofa spuds into mob stories. (C)

This movie takes the Lufthansa heist, which was a part of "Goodfellas", and expands it into a whole movie. While this is not a criticism in itself (and it's interesting to see how different screenwriters, actors, and directors handle the same factual material), "The Big Heist" can't hold a stylistic candle to G-F although it does contain much more detailed information; G-Fs, as far as I can remember, never mentioned the existence of Jimmy's (DeNiro's) children, one of whom plays a major role in "Heist".

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** The true story of the big heist in the 1970s at JFK airport is really a fascinating story. It's almost a Shakespearan tragedy about a newly released mobster Jim Burke played sympathetically by DOnald Sutherland who with his pals plan the big heist. Expecting only about half a million dollars, they steal about 8 million dollars in an elaborate well-plotted scheme. Jim Burke is no Castellano or John Gotti, he truly loves his men like family. They are on the bottom of the New York Mafia hierarchy. When they get the money, Jim hides it until everything is ready to release and cut for everybody. But when one of his own men mess up, he had to get killed. But the killing does not stop. The situation only gets worse for him. Soon, all of his own men are killed and he is all alone. Somehow the money does not matter anymore to him. He was placed in a difficult position by New York's mob leaders who threatened his own son's life. Unfortunately, he would die while Jim returns to prison for a minor crime in comparison to the big heist. You almost feel sorry for Jim Burke who did not have the heart to kill his own men to save his son's life. While the big heist was the big thrill in itself, it slowly became a living nightmare for Jimmy Burke.