Forgive me. I was wrong. This film is a Turkey. I have seen  it about 3 times now, and I have concluded that … It was NOT Serge Leone’s finest hour. It can’t make its mind up whether it is 1) A straight gangster film 2) A farce 3)  a spoof or … 4)  an “Art Film” … James Woods is a fine actor but … not in this film … after the film has been running an interminable length of time we are shown that “Max” (James Woods) doesn’t like being called “crazy”, and if so-called, he loses the plot (what plot ?) and lashes out. I can only imagine that this “Don’t EVER call me crazy” routine  was included late in the day as an after thought and it just looks … clumsy at best, and is normally a poor “device” in other (normally poor) films I have seen. The scene in the Hospital where babies are “swapped” around is also a mistake, as it is done as a sort of lame nod to Busby Berkley excess and seems to be trying to say “what fun we are having … what a lark …  what a jape”. If a film makes you cringe because it is gauche then … It has failed. This did. (I bet R D Niro and James Woods are embarrassed by this film) … I was.  Verdict … “The good, the bad and the Ugly” … YES …”Once upon a time in the West” … YES … “Once upon a time in America” …. NO.  Conclusion … 2 out 3 ain’t bad.  There were some very tenuous, ludicrous links in the plot, and I can imagine Serge chatting in the editing room and nobody daring to ask the rhetorical question … “Uhm, Serge my old mate … How the <industrial language> are we going to save this pile of Doo Doo”. It is nowhere near as cringingly unwatchable as “Bonfire of the vanities” but … very few films are.  I believe the phrase is “Style over content” or, as we say in Northern England … “All fur coat and no Knickers”.