Not Leone's best

Rating: 5/10 (3 March 2005)

I know some people consider this to be Leone's best movie. I must say I strongly disagree. The acting in the movie is solid, would you expect otherwise looking at the cast. The story, however, is another matter. The movie is based on a book, and it shows. Despite lasting more than 220 minutes the movie still leaves a lot of characters very underdeveloped. The fact that the story stretches over the entire lifetime of the characters also constitutes a problem. The different events in the characters' lives we are shown are not very well connected. We are unable to contextualize the events and therefore the characters' motivation is difficult to comprehend. In short, the story is fragmented. As for the ending, well I am not going to spoil the movie for anyone, but I will say that it is a bit far-fetched.