Say what you will, but this is an important milestone in cinema, in popular culture. On a surface level, it changed everything about the way the Mafia — and Italian Americans — would be portrayed for decades to come. The formal elements of the film, the freeze-frames, the dual voice over narration, the jumping music, the tracking shots — none of this was unheard of before, but never was there so much of it (and so much of it done well) all in one place. It is a masterpiece. Garrett makes a point that it is not a masterpiece because it is wholly immoral. All characters are evil and our protagonist, while at times appears to recognize a line between right and wrong, is just a weasel looking out for himself. This may be true, but I don’t know that it detracts from the film.