Beautiful to view, tough to chew

Rating: 6/10 (2 November 2015)

This is a review of the 4-hour director's cut. If you have not seen it, please do so.
I'm not going to go into a detailed recreation of the film. I just want to focus on what I felt was disappointing about it. I could heap loads of praise onto Leone for his cinematography, the Morricone score, even most of the acting. But those things are often discussed, and are primary reasons this film has received its overrated status.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have the people who detest this film simply for its content. Specifically the rape scene in the car. They feel the need to give the film 0 stars because they disagree with an interpretation of the director's intent which they've come up with on their own. Now there's a certain amount of fairness to that, art is supposed to be interpreted and Leone agreed with this. But to simply watch the movie, be reviled by the rape but kind of okay with the rest, and then give the movie no credit whatsoever - that's also unacceptable. If you disagree on a fundamental level with what's happening on screen, then don't watch it. But then where would A Clockwork Orange be? So anyway, you could say those same words to me at the end of this - "If you disagree, don't watch" - but the thing is, I loved watching this movie for the first 2 hours, even knowing how incredibly disappointing it would be at the end. I watched it twice in two days. That's 8 hours. So, I'm a fan. Which is why I'm writing this.
Sergio Leone originally wanted to release this as two separate movies. If that would have happened, time between the release of the first half and second half might have possibly caused the audience to simply forget how loving Max (James Woods) was with his gang/best friends. From their childhood meeting until the very night that Max fakes his own death, steals all their money, and HAS THEM KILLED, he shows nothing - NOTHING - beside respect and love for them. And this is my main problem with glowing 10-star reviews of this movie - they are overlooking this huge, massive blow to the credibility of the story.
It's not one of those things where you can just be like "well, you just don't understand what's happening" - because nothing happens. Literally, the whole story up to that spot is pointing in a singular direction, and then it all changes course over a matter of a few minutes. And don't give me the whole "Max's dad was insane" thing... it was never written into the story in a way that was convincing or even important. You can argue just how important the times were when Max hits Noodles because he calls him crazy but that's an impulsive move, not an incredibly calculated one like what we are to told he masterminds on the fateful night. Also, if you believe that the film after the opium den is NOT a hallucination/opioid dream (I do believe it is), then you see how Max definitely is not in an insane asylum by the time he's even much older than his dad was when he was committed.
Max was in love with Noodles. Some say that this repressed homosexuality caused his socio- and psychopathic behavior. I think that's a long shot too. Why have every person who has ever fully accepted him as their brother killed? Max is the one who insisted that they always split the money they made evenly, now all of a sudden he wants it all for himself and is going to take it in THE MOST BRUTAL WAY POSSIBLE? It's simply too much to ask of me as a viewer.
People may disagree with me, but these are the reasons I am giving this movie 6 stars instead of 8,9 or even 10 if the third act trouble had been properly resolved. Honestly, even the four-hour cut I watched twice is, well, kind of a mess. And it's even more disappointing, because the first two hours are quite good.