The film was adapted by Steve Shagan, and later rewritten by Cimino and Gore Vidal from Mario Puzo's 1984 novel of the same name.

Christopher Lambert stars as Salvatore Giuliano, the infamous bandit who tried to liberate early 1950s Sicily from Italian rule.

Salvatore Giuliano, an infamous bandit, together with his ragtag band of guerrillas, attempted to liberate early 1950s Sicily from Italian rule and make it an American state.

As his popularity grows, so does his ego, and he eventually thinks he is above the power of his backer, Mafia Don Masino Croce.

Don Croce, in turn, sets out to kill the upstart by convincing his cousin and closest adviser Gaspare "Aspanu" Pisciotta to assassinate him.

[3] When producer Bruce McNall met with Cimino at a dinner in Los Angeles, he complained loudly about the script and Begelman's interference with casting.

[4][7] Following two unsatisfactory meetings with Steve Shagan about his script, Cimino heavily rewrote it, enlisting the help and collaboration of novelist Gore Vidal in the process.

[8] Ironically, it was Vidal who ended up filing suit against both Shagan and the Writers Guild of America to receive screenplay credit.

[7] In order to prepare them for their roles, Christopher Lambert recalled that prior to filming, Cimino had him and John Turturro spend an entire two and a half months riding on horseback in Sicily.

Cimino did not report any of his progress on the editing as the months passed until he delivered a 150-minute cut of the film and declared that he was done.

Cimino insisted that no more cuts could be made and pressed Begelman and McNall to present the current version to 20th Century Fox, the film's domestic distributor.

Cimino's lawyers used a precedent established by Fields in an earlier case: Fields aided Warren Beatty's win in a dispute over final cut with the producers of the movie Reds, a finding that stated a contract granting a director final cut was absolutely binding.

[15]A subsequently unearthed side letter stated that notwithstanding the contract, Cimino did not have the right to final cut on Year of the Dragon.

Many critics panned the film's incoherent narrative, muddy visual style, and the casting of Lambert in the lead as Giuliano.

"[17] In his Chicago Sun-Times review, Ebert claimed The Sicilian continues director Michael Cimino's "record of making an incomprehensible mess out of every other film he directs", contrasting the "power and efficiency" of The Deer Hunter and The Year of the Dragon with the "half-visible meditations on backlighting" of Heaven's Gate and The Sicilian.

"[19] Variety added "Cimino seems to be aiming for an operatic telling of the short career of the violent 20th-century folk hero [based on Mario Puzo's novel], but falls into an uncomfortable middle ground between European artfulness and stock Hollywood conventions.

"[20] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post felt it was "unambiguously atrocious, but in that very special, howlingly grandiose manner that only a filmmaker with visions of epic greatness working on a large scale with a multinational cast can achieve.

"[21] Leonard Maltin rated the film a "BOMB", calling it a "militantly lugubrious bio of Salvatore Giuliano".

"[16] In his analysis of The Sicilian, Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote: "Cimino doesn't stint on the Western analogies, with horses and mountains and conflicts over land rights, and his image repertory is as vital and energetic as ever, but it's hard not to see a crisis of cinematic faith, a sense of narrowing possibilities, afflicting the film.

The pageantry of a Communist march with red flags in the wilderness, the ancient clutter of a nobleman's study, the haunting mystery of streetlights through a car's rear window all ring with Cimino's enthusiastic inspiration, but the movie seems like a substitute for the director's visions at his most uninhibited.

It plays mostly like a feature-length analogy, a sort of intellectual behind-the-scenes laboratory for another vast American movie that he couldn't have made at the time.

Maltin gave the director's cut of The Sicilian two stars out of four, writing that the film "seems shorter, thanks to more coherency and Sukowa's strengthened role.

Neither version, though, can overcome two chief liabilities: Cimino's missing sense of humor and Lambert's laughably stone-faced performance.