Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

Dir. Sergio Leone

Unfortunately, this is a two hour-plus, uninteresting slog past the hour and a half point (roughly), matched with some of the most unlikable characters I’ve ever had to spend a movie with. The journey of De Niro’s character throughout this is comparable to The Irishman in many ways. The difference lies in the fact that De Niro’s character in Once Upon a Time in America shows no signs of progressing towards redemption while the movie switches between time periods. If there was any of that sprinkled throughout, they were ineffective and not believable enough to make me care, which ended up sticking with me for a majority of the film. In the end, De Niro is left with James Woods’ absolutely deplorable character, and all the actions shown to have been done by De Niro’s character don’t give the audience an overwhelming feeling of having seen a “real glimpse” into his life, but instead leaves an unsympathetic and overall bad taste in your mouth. I get how that’s, you know, the point (“bad people are bad”), but when making a movie, you’ve also got to add underlying, relatable personalities to the characters so the viewer has some sort of motive to give an ounce of care. But who am I to tell Sergio Leone how to make a movie? It doesn’t change the fact that this movie falls flat on many cylinders, though. I may be sounding a bit too harsh here, but if I’m being completely honest, I didn’t enjoy anything after the scenes with the characters when they were young. I’m sure the story worked better as a book.

1/27/22