Once Upon a Time in America

[The Burgomaster]

I bought the DVD of this Sergio Leone classic the other day and watched it over the weekend. What a great movie.

I saw it during its U.S. theatrical run back in the 1980s and thought it was pretty good, but not great. Of course, they cut about an hour out of it for the U.S. release, and rearranged the story so that it was in chronological order, rather than being told via flashbacks as in the uncut version.

The DVD is far better than the butchered U.S. theatrical version. The cast is great (Robert DeNiro, James Woods, Tuesday Weld, Elizabeth McGovern, William Forsythe, Danny Aiello, Joe Pesci, Burt Young, Treat Williams, Richard Bright, etc.) and Leone's visual style is amazing.

The DVD also has an interesting documentary about the making of the film and how Leone was upset when they decided to edit it.

It has a running time of over 3 hours and 45 minutes, but it never gets boring.

I highly recommend this to fans of Sergio Leone and fans of gangster films.

[lester1/2jr]

I remember Ebert gave it 4 stars, but gave the edited version 1 1/2 stars.

[Neville]

My favourite Leone film, together with "Once upon a time in the West" and "The good, the bad and the ugly". Only seen the uncut version myself, and I'm glad.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Haven't seen this one yet.
Hope to rent it or possibly pick it up one day.

That is if I can get my wife to sit through the four hour run time.  :o)