Masterpiece?

Rating: 9/10 (8 May 2002)

That's the word that keeps popping up in the users' reviews of this film, and not without reason. I don't know if I'm prepared to draw that judgment myself (I'd really have to see it again), but I'm among those who, at the least, take seriously such claims. I think there are few films in American cinema history that clearly meet this level of quality: the _Godfather_ saga, _Schindler's List_, _Apocalypse Now_, a great number of Kubrick films, some of Hitchcock's films, some Welles films, David Lean's epics, and maybe some others that don't come to mind right off. In the "maybe" class I'd put this one, perhaps Leone's other epics (though, again, I'd have to see *those* again), _Chinatown_, and perhaps several others. In any event, the list of such films (masterpiece-level or very near it) is not very long, and this one belongs on it.
In the pantheon of great gangster films, this has to be right up near the top, below the _Godfather_ films and above _Goodfellas_ (and _On the Waterfront_, should one so classify it). In the relatively barren landscape of 1980s American film, this one towers above just about all of them. It's a truly special film and, aside from its decent placement in the top 250 on this website, has been unjustly neglected/overlooked for the past couple decades, as evidenced by the fact that it's yet to be released on DVD (the arrival of which I'm among those ever-so-patiently awaiting).
This one is among the two dozen or so films that I'd rate a 9/10 or higher.