| Once Upon a Time in America | | Cast : | Robert De Niro, James Woods | | Director : | Sergio Leone | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | June 01, 1984 | | DVD Released Date : | December 16, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 01, 2005 | | Summary | One of the worse movies I've ever seen...don't believe the hype. | Content
 | This movie is so bad on so many levels. Why do people say this is a good movie? Practically 4 hours of poor dialogue and over the top sexual antics. It's like a bad porno/mob flick.
Robert Deniro is the only multi-faceted character but even he's hard to read in this flick. James Woods character was totally wacked. Both characters go from stand up kids to total nut jobs and/or Opium abusers.
Robert Deniro in the early years stabs the local kingpin and a cop and gets locked up. That alone shows he wasn't fond of the authority and was willing to take the fall for his friends. Then later on when a problem presents itself he calls the cops on his friends? Garbage.
James Woods played the leader role and seemed to be very chummy with Deniro but his actions just don't add up. They noted he was slightly crazy when he told that girl to get out the room but later on when Deniro calls him crazy a couple of times he flips out and assaults him, as if to say such a comment has been bothering him his whole life.
The other "mobsters" in the crew hardly say anything so you really can't say anything about them.
The story just flat out sucked. In the beginning when Deniro sees his friends on the ground dead after a heist which we think is orchestrated by James Woods, one of them is burnt to a crisp and unrecognizable. He assumed it was James Woods but when James appears in the end of the movie as a Senator, he just says "that was some other guy" when apparently James was very passionate about the heist and willing to assult his dear friend for calling him crazy for it.
Deniro had been in love with his lady friend ever since she was a young Jennifer Connelly and when they get older he wines and dines her. She tells him she wants to go to Hollywood and Deniro seemed to be very understanding of this AND why she couldn't be with him. Why then did Deniro violently rape her afterwards?
Deniro also "raped" a blonde during a jewelry heist and the blonde later appeared at a local brothel. Clearly she was digging it so when did they start hating each other? When she meets them at the brothel and they all pull their dicks out, she goes for James Woods and becomes his main squeeze. There was still no signs of them hating each other like they claim later on in the movie. When Deniro and Woods go on vacation down in Miami she's with Woods and Deniro is with a blonde, who apparently doesn't even have a name. Before Deniro shamelessly tips off the police about his friends plans, he tells this unnamed blonde that he's going away and they make a big deal about it, as if they established a close relationship.
What was the point of Joe Pesci in the movie? I understand he introduced Deniro's crew to his "brother" and then had them rob and execute him after the jewelry heist but later in the movie when the crew visits the union delegate in the hospital, Joe Pesci appears for the second and last time with a mischevious look. We have no idea why he's there, why he had that look or his purpose to the story. Oh yeah, when the crew retaliates for the union guy, they irratically spray the other mobsters up with automatic weapons, except of course the guy in the middle who doesn't even get touched.
Further proof that the character build up and the story itself was piss poor is the ending when Deniro visits the older Jennifer Connelly after one of her shows. After what they say was 30 years, he doesn't apologize for violently raping her and she acts as if it didn't even happen. LOL! Then a kid named David knocks on the door and and the older Jennifer doesn't wish to let him in. When Deniro starts giving her the third degree about the invite he received in the mail, she apparently fesses up and says "Mr. Bailey is a wealthy business man and senator". Deniro went to her about the invite so I guess she was supposed to have inside information on this senator, who turns out to be James Woods. If he didn't know this was his old pal, why did he go to a girl he raped 30 years ago for info? She ends up confessing to living with "Mr Bailey" all of these years.
When Deniro asks about David the older Jennifer says it's Mr Bailey's son and his mother died while giving birth to him. This is after she "confesses". When Deniro opens the door and sees David, he looks exactly like James Woods did in their early years, only he's named after Robert Deniro's character. When Deniro confronts "Mr Bailey" aka James Woods at his estate in the end of the movie, Deniro acts as if he doesn't even know him.
There are even more holes in this storyline (like the dump truck at the end) and plenty of weak dialogue to make it even more noticeable. I would consider myself a huge Deniro, Pesci and James Woods fan but I'm sorry, this movie flat out sucks.
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| Rating | | | Date | July 07, 2005 | | Summary | Sheer Brilliance | Content
| Once Upon a Time in America chronicles the lives of 4 neighborhood friends who grow up to become gangsters. After many years Noodles De Niro's Character) recieves a letter that tells him to come back to his old neighborhood where his friends died one night.
This movie has it all; great cinematography, acting, directing and the story are all top notch. This is one of De Niro's greatest roles (Not on the level of Jake La Motta, Travis Bickle, or Johnny boy but still is one De Niro movie worth buying. Joe Pesci, James Woods also star |
| Rating | | | Date | June 30, 2005 | | Summary | One of my favorite films | Content
| The reviewer below cant count to five because this film is not 6 hours long. The film is 3 and 1/2 hours long. I suspect they have weak powers of concentration in Australia. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 23, 2005 | | Summary | Worst movie ever | Content
| I have seen many movies but have never been moved enough to actually write a review. This movie was terrible. The assembled cast was good but they must be asking themselves why on earth they agreed to such tripe.
The music (whilst consistent with other Leone films) was annoying and innapropriate. The gratituitous portrayal of a woman enjoying rape was misogynistic in the least and very disturbing. That particular character had no other role in the movie apart from that. The child sex scenes were not necessary to the film at all. Especially the nude scene of the "good" girl.
I have always had problems with the portrayal of a genuinely evil person as someone with a human heart. The De Niro character was a petty criminal who grew up to be a rapist, murderer and snitch. He is no better than his friends and the audience should not have any feelings for him other than he deserved what he got.
The film was very well shot and the attention to period details good but the script was awful. Some of the scenes seemed to put in to showcase the directors skills alone eg. the so called "boy eating cake" scene. Why was that there other than to suggest that these were boys playing a man's game. The next scene is that of underage sex. Counterposition or gradiose posturing?
I sat through the long version of the movie and felt that it could have done with some serious editing. Some of the other reviewers suggest that this would have been a better movie in 2 or 3 parts. I would agree with this on the whole. The other part of me is worried....6 hours of this nonsense!
Nimalan |
| Rating | | | Date | May 05, 2005 | | Summary | Once Upon a Time in America | Content
| I just saw this film for the first time in its unedited (229-min.) format and it is one of the best movies I have ever seen. The time spent on character development makes it all worth while. James Woods is in his finest form of any movie I have ever seen him in, including Salvador, and that is saying something. DeNiro is even better, and his part proves why he is considered one of the best actors of the past 30+ years. Then there are all of the supporting actors, who were amazing as well. The fact that this movie didn't win a Best Picture Oscar is one of the great travesties of cinematic justice. That is all. |
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