What is all the fuss about?

Rating: 1/10 (6 February 2006)

This film looked beautiful and pitting Jennifer Connelly to play a young Elizabeth McGovern is a brilliant piece of casting. But the rest of the film falls terribly short. The story is all over the place, the direction is utterly confusing, the script is laughable and, despite the great cast, the acting is pathetic at best. I've seen two versions of this film and it gets worse and worse every time. I'm not too sure how director Sergio Leone envisioned this film, but it felt like Leone lost his focus and tried to put two small overblown films into one hugely overblown film. How on earth this film got onto IMDb's top 250 is beyond me. I think Once Upon a Time in America may fall into the category of being "voted" a great film based on the names in the cast and production crew.