I loved an hour and a half of this four and a half hour movie. The story is needlessly complicated by jumping between three different time periods. The heart of the story is about the rise of a group of Jewish kids in Prohibition Era New York, but they keep adding in B-plots and the endless time jumping drag it down quickly. I really enjoyed the sections when we see the characters as kids. This is easily where the acting is best (even though they are child actors) and the story is most compelling. As soon as we switch back to either of the other two time periods, it all gets so drawn out and quite often boring. I swear we spend at least half an hour looking at Robert De Niro's stupid fucking blank face in a close up shot for absolutely no reason. When he's talking, De Niro does a great job, but anytime he's supposed to emote with his face, he just gives us this stoic, dead-eyed face that we linger on for way too long. The lingering is probably the biggest issue with the film. If they knew when to just fucking cut the shot and move on instead of holding it way past any eventfulness or importance we'd cut out a solid hour. There is no reason for this film to be four and a half hours, especially when most if it feels like filler. Once Upon a Time in America is indulgent and mostly unnecessary. The highlight of the film is Brian Bloom's eyes.