Worth the investment of time.

Rating: 9/10 (13 April 2012)

Some reviewers of this movie have complained about its length (almost 4 hours). So? Watch it on two successive nights in two hour installments, and count your self lucky. For years, the sole version of this movie that was available on video was severely cut down, shorter by 90 minutes, and the result was nothing less than butchery. It was like somebody deciding Picasso's Guernica was too huge, so let's take these scissors and make it smaller... Actions taken by the adult characters often made no sense, since those actions were supposed to resonate with actions taken when the characters were young, and those earlier actions were cut out. Spend the time, watch the movie and think about what you are seeing. This is, simply put, one of the five best movies of 1984 and in the long version you get to see it in all of its broad sweeping and elaborate narrative structure and all of its interesting little details. Marvel at the cast of young actors (including a then 13-year-old Jennifer Connelly) who dream of something better than the immigrant ghetto poverty they grew up in, and watch as their dreams and schemes and casual morality sow the seeds of the adults they will become. Live in their America, in the moment and across the decades - an America of limitless opportunity, but also of infinite potential for corruption and exploitation. Success in this America meant always having something on the go and it usually meant trying to keep one step ahead of the cops, whether you were a street punk or a 'legitimate businessman'. Note: other Zippers have made much of DeNiro's gangster's attempted rape of his former childhood friend in the film, but this scene was by no means gratuitous or exploitative. It was, in fact, a demonstration of how far the worlds of the two had grown apart, and this is just one example of how deeply and symbolically EVERYTHING in this movie resonates. A movie this ambitious or good can't ever be 'too long'.