C'era una volta in America! the new 269 minute version!

Rating: 9/10 (21 October 2012)

"this review contains spoilers"
I wanted to write down a review here long time ago,unfortunately never got round to it,but last night after viewing the newly extended version of once upon a time in America with 26 minutes of additional scenes,the time has now arrived to share my thoughts and feelings on what i describe a marvelous and unforgettable experience!
It has to be said..watching it at the cinema is totally different than watching it on DVD.i do own the movie,admired it on numerous occasions,but boy o boy i didn't capture me as much as last night;a good explanation perhaps is sitting in a dark movie theater isolated from everyone and everything,you feel part of that world that is been portrayed on screen.Like never before you manage to taste the profound feeling of friendship,betrayal,love and greed all of which are masterfully told by the maestro Sergio Leone,and most of all you can feel the heart and soul on which the film is founded and constructed on. Its an epic tale of ; Jewish gangsters that make their way through the prohibition era,narrates the rise and fall of David"Noodles" Aaronson,Max,Patsy and Cockeye!A period of time that goes from the early 1900's to the late 1960's which includes many flashbacks and flashfowards about their childhood and adulthood...the characters are loyal and respect each other but towards the end enter a fase that will finish not only in tragedy but also in mystery.
this new version includes six to seven new added scenes,bringing it to a running time of 269 minutes,the version that Leone originally intended to establish,but got reduced to 229 minutes(European version).1)When Noodlees goes and visits his friends grave there is a scene while talking with the owner of the cemetery, a car(with covered windows)appears in the background and drives around the block to spy on him.noodles suspects something strange about the car so he writes down the plate number.2)the information about the car leads him to senator Bailey's house,while standing outside the gate that same car he saw at the cemetery is coming out of the mansion and eventually explodes..then this leads to the part when noodles is sitting in fat moe's watching firefighters in TV clearing the fire on a car...3)while noodles is waiting in the street to take Deborah on a date,he has a chat with the driver.4)After getting rid of Joe and his gang noodles drives the car with his friends on board in the water,an added scene shows max patsy and cockeye laughing it off in the water,and max tries to find noodles who disappears.5)Deborah is playing Cleopatra during a play at the theater and noodles is there as a spectator.6)before noodles and max meet in the end,max has a conversation in his studio with the famous politician that gets shot in the leg earlier in the film. other few scenes show how noodles meets Eve. Do these extra scenes add something more to the film??well certainly they help understand the movie even more,they cover up plot holes that were existent in the previous version, maybe a few sequences were not necessary,but it doesn't really matter. these sequences though do not improve the Frank monaldi character,he still remains in complete mystery.
this film is a masterpiece no doubt;if Sergio Leone would still be alive,he would be proud of his children,Andrea and Raffaella,who played a big part to finally bring to life the version that their late father had envisioned.A film that left him heartbroken by the lousy editing of the U.S version that flopped big time and that received extremely negative reviews.Flashbacks were all chopped off and the film's events were narrated in chronological order. Its safe to say that justice has been made.Works of art should just be left alone. This film definitely ranks up there as one of greatest gangster movies ever made and it surely worth the watch!!
Robert De Niro is exceptional,Woods is fantastic and the rest of the cast delivers on a high note.
Noodles turns towards the camera,smiles,credits start to appear and the music starts to play......EPIC
IT JUST LEAVES YOU IN TEARS!!