Pros And Cons Of The Unabridged Version of Once Upon A Time In America

Rating: 8/10 (4 April 2017)

Pros: 1. This is one of those movies that you need to see more than once. The first viewing may confuse you with the shifts in time but the more you see it and the more closely you pay attention , you see the movie is well-constructed and it doesn't jump through time just to be artsy.
2. Bad child actors are at least twice as annoying as bad adult actors, so it's a relief that all the child actors are good, even if the boys didn't grow up to be Oscar-Winners like Jennifer Connelly. They can be believable as criminals while maintaining a certain level of innocence. On tough streets like that you had to do what you needed to survive.
3. De Niro And Pesci prove they don't need Scorsese to make a good movie, having Scorsese just really really helps (let's not forget that James Woods would work with De Niro, Pesci and Scorsese in "Casino"). It's a shame Pesci wasn't in the movie as much as Sergio Leone originally intended but the work Pesci does in this movie is great.
4. Very glad Burt Young found time in between Rocky III and Rocky IV to be in this movie. His story about insurance is hilarious and definitely sounds like something Paulie would say in an R-Rated Rocky movie. Like Pesci, it's shame Burt Young is in the movie so briefly but at least Burt Young has a definite end and doesn't just disappear from the movie like Pesci.
5. The music is phenomenal. Certain musical themes are consistently reused and they never get old. The instrumental version of Yesterday is sadly appropriate for a movie in which the good times were clearly in the past. It helps that the scenes with Elderly noodles are in 1968 when the Beatles were still active though well on their way to breaking up.
6. Like The Corleone Family in The Godfather, I always get a kick out of seeing the main characters get the better of their opponents, whether it's a corrupt cop, a hoodlum who would kill a child or a strike-busting cop. I especially love how they use the strike-busting cop's newborn son to get the cop under their thumbs in a way without putting the baby in danger.
7. For the most part, this film does a great job of avoiding any accusations of being a Godfather rip-off. There's just a few moments that vaguely remind of The Godfather. For instance, the kids blackmailing a cop (who was often very hard on them) for having sex with a minor reminds me of the condescending senator in Godfather Part II who ended up under the Corleone's thumb after finding himself in bed with a dead prostitute.
8. I liked the scene where the kid chooses a Charlotte Russe with whipped cream over sex with Peggy. A woman's much sweeter than wine but not as sweet as good candy.
9. Despite nearly running 4 hours, this film is never boring and scenes never feel unnecessary.
10. Best Line: Dominick: Noodles, I slipped
Cons: 1. Rape is never a pro. The worst thing is that Noodles never really gets a comeuppance or apologizes for his actions. Though perhaps he went to the train station the next day attempting to apologize to Deborah. Carol seems delighted to meet her attackers again. While Deborah isn't happy to meet Noodles again, she doesn't tell him to get out of her sight or even mention the rape (perhaps she just put it behind her after 30 years).
2. I would have liked to see more of the Eve character. We don't even see her meeting Noodles, she's just there in Florida all of a sudden. It's never really indicated whether Noodles really cared about her of if she was just a substitute for Deborah. Would Noodles cheat on Eve with Deborah if he could? It seems Eve's only true purpose in the movie is to be killed so we can see how badly the bad guys want Noodles. Even if the story had been told chronologically and she didn't die in her first scene, I doubt her death would have much impact.
3. The relationship between Noodles and Deborah as kids is a tad confusing. She's usually very rude to him (not that you could blame her for being rude to a peeping tom) then this one moment she's tender before she does back to being rude.
4. Elderly Noodles tells Max he's crazy and Max responds "You said that to me once before". Noodles actually said it twice before: at the Florida beach and in New York shortly after Noodles makes the phone call that (he thinks) betrays Max.
5. In the poster for Deborah's Cleopatra play, it mentions that age could not wither her beauty. How could age affect Cleopatra? She committed suicide at age 39. Cleopatra didn't give age a chance to affect her beauty