At the beginning of Once Upon a Time in America, there are some gangsters that try to kill Noodles, kill Eve and beat up Fat Moe. Is it implied anywhere in the movie who are they working for? Was it the Union or Max trying to get revenge?
1 Answer
Frankie Monaldi. Or Max
From fandom.com:
after Max, Patsy, and Cockeye all supposedly die, he has his henchman go on the lookout for Noodles, killing his girlfriend Eve in the process, as well as brutalizing Fat Moe, and attacking a couple at the Chinese opium theater
However, the police, which was on Max's payroll and helped him fake his death, would of course have informed him about Noodles calling them. Max would have been unaware about the actual good intentions behind that "betrayal" (to send him to jail to prevent him getting killed in a Federal Reserve Bank robbery he was longing to do), and would have taken that as a real betrayal by Noodles. Hence, while being officially dead, he would have ordered him killed.
