Friendship

Rating: 10/10 (24 November 2006)

I have read several comments on this film across the internet "Best movie on prohibition" "Comparable only to Godfather". I believe the movie is really about friendship and sacrifice. What is remarkable about this film is not only the screenplay but the remarkable ability of director Sergio Leone to create three movies in one with disregard to any chronological sequence of events. I have seen the movie two times in one week and I still have to watch it over a couple of times to fully understand the message.
The most dramatic part of the movie is towards the end, when Noodles decides to call the police hoping that Max would be arrested and therefore give up his plan to rob the Federal Reserve Bank, a complete suicidal act. Upon his call the police comes and his friends are killed, than Eve, his girlfriend is murdered by the police.
The movie begins in 1933 and ends with the same scene, with Noodles played by de Niro smoking opium on the bed at the Chinese place. This led a number of critics to the conclusion that actually Noodles is fantasizing about his future and I think this interpretation is correct. His devilish smile at the end of the movie is probably one of the most enigmatic pieces in filmography. Why is he smiling about? He just called the police and gave-in his friends who died in a shootout. is he smiling because everything is over, like some critics argue? I don't think so. He didn't seem unhappy up to this point, or at least not that desperate to explain such an emotion. Is it because he failed? I think this could be a possible answer. He was telling Fat Moe" You can always tell winners and losers" and he thought himself a loser. So the hysterical smile can be connected to a resignation in face of his fate. Logically, the movie should end in 1968. In a way or another. But it ends, strangely in 1933 with Noodles on a dose of opium and with a mysterious smile on his face. I think he dies that night along with his friends, the rest being just a premonition of what would happen if he stayed alive. The fact that Max survives in his fantasy is only one more reason to see it as a fantasy. Max was more than a friend, they seemed connected in life and death and the fact that Noodles was seeing him again in 1968 is just a projection of this close relationship, his brain refusing to accept that he practically murdered his best friend along with his other two childhood friends and his girlfriend Eve.
The fact is even more dramatic and striking as you see the friendship of these boys starting in a harsh neighbourhood in the 20s and you see them sticking together ten years later. Noodles tries to save them but instead he kills them. His smile is only an ironical resignation of his failure. In his premonition, he meets Fat Moe once again in 1968 and at a point Moe says: "I would have bet everything on you" "You would have lost" comes the reply from Noodles. This is the essence of the movie...and it is a true masterpiece