A lack of charism and a waste of time

Rating: 6/10 (14 March 2004)

In a rainy boring night, I was looking some DVD´s in my living room, and by coincidence, I found Once Upon in America DVD. I´ve seen it many times, but yesterday I thought, today I will take 3 tiresome hours to evaluate this movie. In the beginning, something already doesn´t smelling good. De Niro looks meanless to me, even the young Noodles actor passed more vibration to me than him in this movie. Other characters, like Dominic, and the other boys (except the scene which Patsy eats the cake in the stairs, waiting Peg, that is wonderful) have no charism. I mean it, another mafia movies, you become friend of the criminals, in this movie, I sensed a completely lack of sense, a non-tight direction, a cold environment from the actors. Other great names, like James Woods, and even Joe Pesci, act in non-significative roles, in part, I think the screanplay was like a bad-made-puzzle, with weak explanations, bad tied, no consciousness between parts. It´s an long-movie complication, I agree. But this kind of try give a several ways to make it up and accomplish another goals, like create familiar characters, and make a lot of great drama scenes, what I missed in this movie. I unfortunately misscalculated the fame of this movie, seeing the ranking position in this site, but, in my opinion, it´s another movie to forget in my closet.