A fully restored disaster

Rating: 2/10 (2 January 2007)

Warning: SPOILERS.
Viewing the special feature for this film, it's evident that the slashing of this otherwise very long film on its first theatrical release was responsible for the poor initial reception and attendant reviews. Now that the full 3 hour and 50 minute version is available on two DVD discs, I see absolutely no cause for celebration. The slow pacing (the phone ringing sequence especially egregious), witless dialog and most importantly, the wholly unsympathetic characterizations themselves, make me wish I had committed myself to doing anything else at all.
DeNiro as "Noodles" and Woods as "Max" are the main figures of a close knit Jewish gang of four, their religious background evident solely when they occasionally use a Yiddishism, e.g., "mazel". Otherwise, they kill, rape (apparently Noodles' preferred form of sexual advance whether it be with a woman betraying her husband in a large jewelry caper - Tuesday Weld's otherwise nymphomaniacal Carol - or with a woman he supposedly loves (Elizabeth McGovern's wholesome Jewish "Deborah") or for no apparent psychological reason get high in a Chinese opium den. We have no idea in this film that encapsulates several time periods what Noodles has been doing for 35 years in Buffalo and when we find out the reason he has been summoned back home, it's just simply ludicrous and not credible for words. As for the soundtrack that's been lauded elsewhere, I don't know how many times anyone else can listen to the syrupy "Amapola" tune, but I had my fill pretty quickly. But read your Ebert (four stars no less!) and see what you think.