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Scorsese doesn't embellish the tale, exactly. As I said before, he seems hell-bent on stripping the glamor THE GODFATHER and other movies gave the Mafia from these guys. Certainly, there are moments when they act like us, and so we laugh in recognition, as when Tommy (Joe Pesci), Henry's hot-tempered colleague, is chided by his mother (Scorsese's real-life mother Catherine) for not settling down with a nice girl. But more often than not, we see them as the scuzzballs that they are, as when Tommy shoots Spider (Michael Imperioli), a waiter for being too slow with an order, then later, when Spider curses him out, shoots him because his friends chide Tommy for letting him get away with cursing him out. And Scorsese and Pileggi do recognize the contradictions apparent in these guys lives, as Karen (Lorraine Bracco), Henry's wife, recognizes Henry does bad things and cheats on her, and sees the other Mafia wives are stuck (though unlike her, seem unaware of this, or don't think about it), but stays because she loves the lifestyle, loves Henry, and is able to rationalize all of this as being just another business.
But the film does, by nature, put Henry front and center in the story, instead of just being an observer, and gives him the self-importance the book denied. Perhaps as a counterpoint to that, Hill is given a little bit of a conscience here. It's never explicitly stated, but the look on Henry's face after he, Tommy, and Jimmy (Robert DeNiro) have buried Billy Batts (Frank Vincent) - a goodfella Tommy killed after Billy insulting him - seems to indicate things have gone a little too far for him. Still, we're left with the impression Henry was more important than he actually was. Other reviews have suggested this may have just been Scorsese's way of capturing how Henry, like other mobsters, exaggerated his own importance. But since Scorsese's film wants to look at the real darkness of these guys lives, that seems a little unlikely.
I don't want to give the impression GOODFELLAS isn't a good film. It's well-acted across the board, particularly by Pesci, who deserved his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The "Funny, how?" scene is deservedly famous, and both funny and chilling. Again, it's technically dazzling, with Scorsese's trademark shots (like his minicam tracking Henry and Karen as they walk into a nightclub through the kitchen entrance) being as powerful now as they were then. And, of course, the soundtrack, from Tony Bennett's "Rags to Riches" to the piano part of Eric Clapton's "Layla," is terrific and well used throughout. But still, for all of it's professional skill, it doesn't reverberate as much as it should.
