The Most Violent Film I Have Liked

Rating: Null/10 (4 August 2000)

I'm a great fan of Sergio Leone and thought this an absolutely marvellous film. It is very violent and normally I don't like violent films. In fact, each time it has been shown on Channel 4 it has been preceded by the disclaimer that it contains from the outset strong language and scenes of violence which may cause offence. But it stays with you. Ennio Morricone has produced a very haunting score. The photography is marvellous and you can also see elements of Leone's westerns in it. He also used a few actors who were also in his westerns. The gangster who lifts the hats off the guys sleeping in the opium den early on in the film is played by Mario Brega who was in all three of the Dollars films and is best remembered as Sergeant Wallace in The Good The Bad and The Ugly. Not all of the film was made in New York. Leone used a location near Venice to represent Miami, the railway station was actually in Paris and the alleyway where James Russo and his gang punch up young Max and Noodles was in Rome (that scene is relatively nonviolent compared to some others in the film). Many of the New York street scenes were filmed in Montreal. On a lighter note some of the scenes in the Jewish parts of the Lower East Side in the early 1920s had me thinking "The Godfather Part II meets Fiddler On The Roof". Altogether a very good if rather violent film.