I watched this film tonight, because it has DeNiro, James Woods, and even Joe Pesci... thinking it will be a good gangster flick. 3 hours and 49 minutes later, I'm watching DeNiro getting high, wondering about my life choices. This movie sucked. The story is boring, way too long to be told, the characters aren't developed for shit- except for Max and Noodles, I barely knew the name of the rest of the gang.
The pacing is way too slow, the music sucks (do we have to hear a Muzak version of 'Yesterday' two separate times in the same movie, really?), the acting is over the top, especially by James Woods, who plays Max as a caricature of the role- I mean, I know he was supposed to be "crazy", but Woods just couldn't pull it off. Of course, looking at his political rantings on Twitter, I wonder if Max Bailey was even an act, maybe he is just bat-shit crazy.
Also, I find it hard to believe that they would expect us to have sympathy for Noodles, who rapes the love of his life on their first date... charming.
The only saving grace were the guys who played the young gang. The young Noodles and Max were especially good, and shared a much better chemistry than DeNiro and Woods did as them as adults.
Overall, I would rate it 2 out of 5 stars.
Submitted February 15, 2019 at 10:44AM by hoosyourdaddyo http://bit.ly/2S6plY0