- Ten years in planning, Sergio Leone’s epic Once upon a Time in America portrays 50 years of riveting underworld history and offers rich roles to a remarkable cast. Robert De Niro and James Woods play lifelong Lower East Side pals whose wary partnership unravels in death and mystery. Strong support comes from Tuesday Weld, Joe Pesci, Jennifer Connelly, Elizabeth McGovern and the young actors playin
Ten years in planning, Sergio Leone’s epic Once upon a Time in America portrays 50 years of riveting underworld history and offers rich roles to a remarkable cast. Robert De Niro and James Woods play lifelong Lower East Side pals whose wary partnership unravels in death and mystery. Strong support comes from Tuesday Weld, Joe Pesci, Jennifer Connelly, Elizabeth McGovern and the young actors playing the central characters as ghetto kids. To see this film (offered for the first time in the full version 1984 Cannes Film Festival audiences cheered) is “to be swept away by the assurance and vitality of a great director making his final statement in a medium he adored” (Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times).This movie has a checkered history, having been chopped from its original 227-minute director’s cut to 139 minutes for its U.S. release. This longer edition benefits from having the complete story (the short version has huge gaps) about turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants in America finding their way into lives of crime, as told in flashback by an aging Jewish gangster named Noodles (Robert De Niro). On the other hand, it’s almost four hours long, and this sometimes-indulgent Sergio Leone film is no Godfather. Still, it is notable for the contrast between Leone’s elegiac take on the gangster film and his occasional explosive action, as well as for the mix of the stoic, inexpressive De Niro and the hyperactive James Woods as his lifelong friend and rival. –Marshall Fine
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March 5, 2010
#1
That’s why this movie bombed in 1984 and whether you watch the 139min version or the director’s cut, it can’t make up for the poor script or storyline. Leone masterfully recreates New York in the 1910s and ’30s, but then insists on labouring absolutely every scene, while irritating us with ringing telephones, clinking teaspoons or Morricone’s morbid soundtrack. The storyline is weak, with the tedious “Our Gang”-like sequence showing the young hoods, the Bonnie & Clyde-like 30′s mobster sequences and then the wholly implausible ’60s finale. The script is poor and doesn’t contain a single memorable line. The acting is ordinary, with most of the cast seemingly sleep-walking through their parts, De Niro and Pesci are wasted (Goodfellas this is not), while Elisabeth McGovern seems unable to even open her mouth to speak. This movie cannot be compared in any way to The Godfather (or even Godfather III!). I regret wasting my time and money on this movie.
March 5, 2010
#2
If you think just Leone’s westerns are intolerable, try this psuedo-American gangster monstrosity on for size. Clear plenty of time on your schedule, though; with intermission it’s four hours long. All of his failings as a film-maker are magnified by the extra time: a complete lack of pacing, a totally unintelligible story line full of papier-mache characters, bad dialogue, too many meaningless close-ups, and yet another insufferable musical signature – this time on a pan-flute, God help us. As Americans I suppose we should be flattered at this type of mimickry but we make better westerns and gangster pictures than a foreign imitator can make. The lesson of Leone’s career should be film what you know.
March 5, 2010
#3
I watched the long version of this movie, and I was thouroughly bored with the whole thing as they did try to do another “Godfather” here, but it doesn’t wash. It shows a bunch of kids that immigrated over from Israel, and landed on Ellis Island only to end up in the Lower East Side of NTC. They all seem like they’re normal kids, and like all normal kids they mess with each other, and grow up to become friends, and then enemies, and finally only opprtunities to achieve what they want in life. Well isn’t that what the American dream is all about kids? I will say that the intercourse scene from behind I don’t know the significance of the scene other than it showed the person only looking out for himself. I mean he had to do it from behind her as he couldn’t even face her. I found “The Godfather” movies one and two way more respectable than this. If it won any oscars at all it was because the MPAA “TOOK A BRIBE!!!!”.
March 5, 2010
#4
If the movie had left out the offensive grafic sex scenes, especially with kids involved in sex acts, I could have enjoyed this movie a little bit. I found it revolting to see children playing some of the scenes. I also agree that there wasn’t much to the dvd other than the movie itself. There’s no point in buying it because you wouldn’t want to see it again.
March 5, 2010
#5
I enjoyed this film when I viewed it on a non cable channel and enjoyed it. But when I bought it I was shocked at how disgusting and perverted it is. There are all kinds of sex acts going on between minors, and teenage prostitutes, it is just terribly disgusting. There are numerous scenes of full frontal nudity many scenes of rape with nudity and unusual positions (if you know what I mean) during the scenes, it is disgusting. I am a huge fan of Robert De Niro I own The Godfather Part II, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, The Deer Hunter, GoodFellas, Casino, Analyze This, Analyze hat and Midnight Run. But this crossed the line between tasteful and disgusting, see it on television but do not dignify this perverse behavior. The only interesting part is the acting of Robert De Niro, Burt Young, and Joe Pesci.