Epic telling of a NY gangster's whole life from about 13.

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2016)

I watched this at home on DVD, 2 discs, 229 minute version, from my public library.
I recently was looking at the IMDb top 250 list and one of the movies I had never seen was this one, currently residing at #68 on the list. So this viewing satisfied my curiosity. Of note it is the last feature film of the noted director Sergio Leone.
The movie is long but that never becomes a factor in watching it, because every scene is so interesting. The late and great critic Ebert wrote of it, "Is the film too long? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that it takes real concentration to understand Leone's story construction, in which everything may or may not be an opium dream, a nightmare, a memory, or a flashback, and that we have to keep track of characters and relationships over fifty years. No, in the sense that the movie is compulsively and continuously watchable and that the audience did not stir or grow restless as the epic unfolded."
It is a story about a group of Jewish teenagers in New York and how their lives developed and played out over 60+ years. The earlier scenes are during early 1920s when Prohibition was in full force, other scenes are during 1933 when Prohibition was repealed, some in the 1960s, and the latest ones in the early 1980s, the period this movie was actually filmed.
Robert De Niro, around 40, is David 'Noodles' Aaronson and his bestie is James Woods, around 35, as Maximilian 'Max' Bercovicz. They become the two most influential members of the group that got rich on a number of illegal activities.
In many places the story is hard to follow because few clues are given as to when exactly some things are taking place. You have to guess based on the vehicles you see, the age certain characters look, what kind of music is playing, etc. So when it is all over you are not really sure what all you saw and what exactly the stories are.
Still it is easy to see why this movie is highly rated. I enjoyed every minute of it but it is not the type of movie I'd watch multiple times.