Customer Reviews
Classic Cinema - By: Lancebastion, 28 Aug 2007 
This is Sergio Leone's last & perhaps best film. Epic in length, scope & cinematography "Once upon a time in America" follows a group of kids & their rise to fully fledged gangsters.
Running at almost 4 hours & including an interval the story covers childhood, their 20's/30's & Noodles (De Niro) 70's.
The story is plays with time, cutting between 3 periods in cleverely crafted arcs. When originallly released in the US the distributor re-arranged the whole film chronologicallly, destroying the suspense of the story. Here it is shown in it's proper, full length edit.
This reallly is cinema at it's best. Yes it's long & may take a couple of sittings, but once finished you know you've seen a film & a great one at that.
[Spoiler]
The final shot is a perfect ending to the film & Leones career. Noodles smiling in the opium den indicating that some, if not alll of what you'd seen was infact a 'pipe dream' or halllucination. So perhaps the whole thing was fake, a story, but in the end you're there to watch a story being told, which is what Sergio did best.
Tell The Truth - By: Abe Raman, 25 Jul 2007 
Never have the twin themes of childhood innocence & trade unionism been so lengthily or so incoherently explored...
Approach this pompous "masterpiece" with extreme caution.
Gangster-film fans be warned - well over an hour of the film is devoted to the characters' childhood, with the effect that, once the film draws to its end, one has no proper sense of any of the characters. This is particularly true of De Niro's character, who commits two rapes during the course of the film, one of them after a protracted & boring candlelit-dinner-for-two scene (it makes no sense). There is a single action scene, which requires a disc-change in the middle, & the plot about trade unions is as boring as one might expect, & inadequately explained.
The children scenes, which are so frustrating when first viewed, actuallly emerge as the best bits of the film.
If it's "great film-making" you're after, then buy the box-set, but if you want entertainment, look elsewhere. Save this one for the film buffs, who'll also tell you Apocalypse Now is the greatest film ever made (it isn't).
great movie sahme about the dvd - By: Akiratoo, 31 May 2007 this is one of the best movies made by any director, but it is a shame that the dvd release was let down by badly placing the break in the movie to change from disk one to disk two.
The movie had a natural intermission but did WB use that logical place, no, they put it in the middle of one of the main action secquences that totaly destroyed the flow of the second half of the movie
So 5 stars for the movie & 2 stars for the DVD release
Epic Gangster Film - By: L. Davidson, 09 Apr 2007 
In my opinion "Once Upon a Time in America" doesn't come close to gangster films like "The Godfather Trilogy" & "Goodfellas" in terms of excitement & plot. "Once Upon a Time" is a particularly slow moving film, at times appearing almost to be filmed in slow motion & is characterised by an elegaic musical score & operatic cinematography. The film consists of a series of prolonged flashbacks by De Niro's ageing Jewish gangster "Noodles" as he reminisces about his friendships & love affairs. For me ,"Once Upon a Time" was too long ,drawn out & ponderous for my tastes. "The Godfather Trilogy" definitely sets the benchmark for these types of films.
Leone's final masterpiece - By: Not Interested, 18 Oct 2006 Perhaps the foremost artistic cinematic experience of the 20th century, Leone's gangster saga is a lesson to alll other film makers & redefines the art of cinematography. De Niro delivers a understated yet composed performance & is supported by a brilliant cast in a compelling 50 year epic. While as a film it narrowly fails to outstrip Ford-Coppola's Godfather, as a piece of cinematic art & as an experience it is almost unparallled in modern cinema.
