Better than The Godfather

Rating: 10/10 (13 July 2006)

I can't watch the Godfather. It's so boring! Both these films are slow but there is a difference, which I think I've figured out. Once Upon a Time in America is slow because it has an attitude. This attitude needs to play itself out over each scene. Example: Noodles returns to gang headquarters and stirs his coffee for two minutes. The gang know that something has gone wrong between him and Deborah and want him to discuss it. Noodles does not want to discuss it and so stirs his coffee until someone talks about something else. The Godfather is slow because nothing happens. Example: The scenes in the hospital with Michael and Don Vito. Nothing is going on. It's no fun to watch. It's not entertaining. Still, come to think of it, Once Upon a Time in America is not exactly entertaining as such. Those rape scenes are really horrible and I, personally, can't watch them. However, one can appreciate how great a film it is and what an achievement in story-telling. Leone does not attempt to make these men seem sympathetic because they are bad men. And though it seems simplistic to say it; bad men do bad things. What can you do? That is just one facet of the strength of the movie, though. The child actors are a revelation. The kid who plays Dominic is brilliant, why we never saw more of him and less of Macauly Culkin is anybody's guess. The other thing is that they look just like young versions of the older actors. The final word, however, must go to Robert de Niro and James Woods. James Woods has rarely been better. He's come close, no doubt about that but never bettered. De Niro is on excellent form with a marvellously restrained performance. Sometimes you have to have a protagonist who is not an extrovert and this is just that character. Noodles, as portrayed by De Niro, is unhappy with his lot for several reasons and let's people know about subtley. The best Leone film? Difficult to say. They're all great films so this would definitely rank as one of the best and certainly deserves more praise than it gets, even now, in the film world.