OUATIA: My view of the movie that is considered as Sergio Leone's masterpiece

Rating: 7/10 (21 June 2003)

Before I saw 'OUATIA' I had read other people's thoughts of it. This was suppose to be Sergio Leone´s masterpiece. I wasn't much impressed when I had seen the first hour or two. I found the second part to be the best one. But I want to see the beginning of it again.
This is in many aspects a good and lavished film done with style and full accuracy, but for me it isn't as good as the Western movies by Leone that I have seen - Per un pugno di dollari (1964), Per qualche dollaro in più (1965), Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966), C'era una volta il West (1968), Giù la testa (1971) and Il Mio nome è Nessuno (1973).
If you compare "Once Upon a Time in America" with Leone´s earlier movies, it misses something important. The charisma, the charm and the warmth of his characters. You never get involved as much in this main characters as you can do with those in his older works. Here you don't care as much about them, because Leone never let you get the chance to come close to them. When it comes to Robert de Niro, I don't care how good actor he is suppose to be. Since his performance in "Taxi Driver", you never get the chance to get involved with the characters he plays. At least in the movies I have seen. Classic Leone characters for me will for ever be Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger) and John Mallory (James Coburn) in "Giù la testa", The Man with no name (Clint Eastwood), Cheyenne (Jason Robards), The Man (Charles Bronson), Frank (Henry Fonda) and Jill (Claudia Cardinale) in "C'era una volta il west", Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) in "Il Mio nome è Nessuno" and Colonel Douglas Mortimer (Lee van Cleef) in "Per qualche dollaro in più". But I doubt that either Noodles or Max will join that gang. For me, Leone's main characters is seldom one dimensional or uncomplicated as the case is with this film. The difference is that this characters misses the spirit as other Leone characters use to have.
I say it once more: I don't like mobster movies. And somehow the modern mobster-movies seldom gets to be something more than just imitations of "The Godfather". And they are often overlong. If you haven't seen any Leone movies but have decide to change that, don't start with this one. And "OUATIA" is almost pretentious, almost. There are several connections between this and Leone´s earlier work, so if you are the type who look close, you can see that this is a Leone-film.
Rating: 7+ of 10.