"You can always tell the winners, and you can tell the losers."

Rating: 9/10 (16 August 2014)

I have to admit, I had to read some of the Q&A dialog on this board to fully understand what James Woods' character Max pulled off to get to the end of the story. I must have gotten distracted somewhere and probably could have figured it out on my own with another viewing, but who has that kind of time on their hands? That's the main reason I give the film just shy of a '10' rating, it was just confusing enough to miss one of the main points I should gotten myself.
Otherwise an outstanding film experience. For a gangster movie I don't put it in the same league as "The Godfather", maybe not even "Godfather II", and for my money I liked "Miller's Crossing" and "Road to Perdition" a lot better, but this was well done. I guess you don't have to go almost four hours to be considered epic, and this picture did that. I'll give Sergio Leone credit though, I've seen a bunch of his spaghetti-Westerns so it was a treat to see him tackle a not quite similar genre to tantalizing effect.
With the director's cut film, I liked the non-linear treatment, but again, with the over long format it wasn't easy reassembling the correct chronology of events trying to make sense of the story. DeNiro and Woods were outstanding as always, though Elizabeth McGovern has a tendency to grate on me in other films, and she did here somewhat as well. That doesn't mean she wasn't good in the role of Deborah, I guess it's a personal preference or lack thereof. It struck me rather curiously that Danny Aiello was given a character using his own name, and wouldn't you know it, the young Deborah who looked to me a little like Jennifer Connelly turned out to be Jennifer Connelly.
I think what I'll do is get back to this film at some point, just not right away. Back to back I've just watched "Seven Samurai" and this one, so maybe it's time to take in a couple shorts.