An ambitious potential masterpiece falls short.

Presentation:

Sergio Leone attempts to create the greatest gangster film of all time and almost does so. The film begins with a fascinating storytelling device mixing flashbacks with dreams and hallucinations. The transition from present to future to past to be honest is a bit dizzying, but sets up for the 4 hour epic. The beginning flashback arc of the film is one of the best introductory developments of any film and really could be a standalone movie in itself. There’s so much magic, camaraderie, loyalty, personality and endearing delinquency that makes it hard not to fall in love with the teenagers despite them being devilish punks. As they get older, not as cute. The film looks very good with the use of cinematic zooms, signature framing though not as good as The Good, the Bad, the Ugly. There many versions and cuts of this film, it doesn’t actually feel as long as it is, but the version I saw was very high quality. It’s quite sharp actually with not a ton of grain. Sound is not perfect with some mismatch taking some of immersion out but music is also quite impressionable, though not as memorable as The Godfather. The pan flute is striking and an awkward choice, with recurring romantic music played in all of the rising actions, which leads to a somewhat confusing tone. The film is neutral in presentation not passing judgment on some of the horrific acts of the characters, but there is still a darker tone throughout the film. You can’t shake the foreboding feeling even in the present since we are presented with the end at the beginning of the film. Some of the teamsters and union conflicts may need a refresher course as there are parts that are unclear with crucial information presented poorly.

Story:

The beggining of this film is excellent. Leone attempts to execute a thrilling and mysterious twist, which I argue is quite unnecessary. Just continue creating the great story, but he is overly ambitious and tries to aim higher and create this psychological ending. Many things are vague and some are actually objectively detrimental to the story. For example we don't see the link when Robert DeNiro's character misses the final job to when he comes to and sees all his friends dead. All we are presented with is Max beating Noodles, the camera doesn't even pan to Noodles being unconscious, it's very difficult to make this connection. We don't see the crime that goes badly, obviously for budget and runtime reasons, but I think more explanation is necessary. The Union leader conflict is hastily introduced, we never really care for it, and a lot of the conflicts are seemingly pointless. What is the purpose of Joe Pesci's character? He doesn't really come back in the future aside from a hospital visit that is never explained. The Bailey mystery is also very difficult to follow and is presented as minimally as possible. I don't think you could honestly follow everything clearly on first viewing, like there's no way you noticed the suitcase full of newpapers at the beginning of the film as we can't comprehend its importance at that moment. The film would have been better off with a standard conclusion but ends up being a confusing mess no matter how you interpret the film.

Analysis:

So the film can be interpreted in several ways. The events happened are all real or everything after the opium den is Noodle's dream. No matter how you look at it the story disappoints. If he wasn't dreaming then many things don't make sense. Deborah's arc is the most offensive. How does she end up marying Max/Bailey while having no problems with seeing DeNiro after he raped her? She acts as if everything is water under the bridge and it makes no sense for her to marry such a gangster when she refused DeNiro for the exact reason. The whole idea for Max's ultimate betrayal, that he planned to get everyone killed is so out of character. Does he love his brothers or not? If he did betray them, the reason for it is loosely credible, ambition and the desire for money is not an acceptable reason in Max's range of decision making. And then we suddenly have karmic justice and Bailey's life is endangered, we just have to accept all these turn of unfortunate events with 0 buildup or explanation and are expected to then care. How did Robert DeNiro leave for such a long time and do nothing? Why was the syndicate hunting him down in the beginning of the film? Was he spared or hunted? Cockeye and Patsy are invisible as adults, which is a shame because the endaring character development with Patsy and Peggy with the cupcake was wonderful and he ends up being discarded by the script. Robert DeNiro's relationship with them as adults doesn't seem meaningful for their deaths to have weight. When they die, we barely see any pain and suffering from Noodles, but when Deborah leaves we have a whole arc to demonstrate his anguish? And in the end of the film, his reunion with her is just whatever to him and all he cares about is Bailey all of a sudden. They do this to focus on Max and Noodle, but despite a shocking twist, it doesn't have any purpose. If everything really is just a dream, then we just wasted our time with a meaningless conclusion, which is the whole purpose of the film and why the beginning implements such a hallucinogenic time shift. No matter how you look at it, the ending is unrewarding.

Conclusion:

The vision is there, but it nearly fails as Leone is too ambitious trying to one up The Godfather and gives us a fantastic coming of age band of brothers with a disappointing ending. The film really is too long and unfocused, as many important events are glossed over and not communicated properly in favor of a mysterious ending. But you might not really care, because the story invests more into ambiguity over investing in the characters. The more I think about where this film fails the angrier I get. However, the childhood arc is overwhelmingly impressionable not to mention a truly diabolical hospital scene, which made the viewing worth it.

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