Bloated, Indulgent, Boring

Rating: 4/10 (30 December 2005)

Sergio Leone is one of my favorite directors. So, it pains me to say it, but I hate the movie. It has a few memorable scenes (Jennifer Conelly's dance, the murder of the cop), but I can't vouch for this movie as a whole. I hate all of the characters not because they are bad people doing bad things, but because they are so goddamn uninteresting. DeNiro is wasted. Only James Woods is given a chance to shine. The story is rambling and the movie is long; which I wouldn't mind if I had characters I was invested in to follow on the journey, but I don't. Leone is a brilliant visual storyteller and he stages many scenes and sequences with his trademark flair, but the story as a whole is no good. It is bloated and indulgent. Leone focuses much time on mundane aspects of these kids' lives to give us a view of their world and invest ourselves with them and their journey, but really, who wants to watch a kid eat a cupcake for five minutes?
It's a funny thing, because I'm gonna give this movie a four star rating. I hated it yet I'm still giving it four stars because I feel there is something about this movie that is special. It is a master filmmaker doing a bad movie as only a true genius can. If some hack had made the movie I wouldn't have even written this review.