Gangs of New York

Rating:
Summary: Cut- Please...
Review: I admit, I am an all or nothing film lover. 3/4 of this tragic waste of fabulous sets, costuming and acting talent should have landed on the cutting room floor. Of course, should that have happened, Scorsese would not have been able to justify his Epic sized budget to the the studio. I felt absolutely nothing for any character in the film, which is sad indeed, because somewhere in the decidedly unpoetically executed script there was an excellent original tale about the U.S.

Rating:
Summary: The best film of 2002
Review: I can't help but wince at all the people out there who trash Scorsese's film because it makes them feel big inside. I can't say that it feels that 20 years of work have gone into this, because it hasn't and that's a mere exaggeration regardless, because I know Scorsese hasn't been working on it that long. But what he ended up with...is an epic masterpiece that pulls no punches and forces people to take it seriously. I'm sorry all the pretentious film snobs with attention spans that don't like anything faster then L'Avventura. Scorsese delivers another great film, and it should have won most of those 10 Oscar nominations.

Rating:
Summary: Dumb Flick
Review: I have always felt that Martin Scorsese was a very overated director, but this film was so bad it was hilarious. The acting was amateurish and the storyline so ridiculous and unbelievable that I felt I was watching a spoof. It played like an old fashioned melodrama. No wonder Harvey Weinstien flipped when he saw this thing. You have to give it to Miramax and their marketing acumen; that they managed to get six academy award nominations for this junk is impressive.

Rating:
Summary: a give away
Review: this film was very dissappointing. a mediocre tv movie is the result of the hard work of many people.
the story is boring, a stupid revenge plot. the setup could have been interesting - new york/americas in its childhood - but the makers give it away. well, maybe the artists behind this work are simply overrated?

Rating:
Summary: Really hard to watch!
Review: I didn't go see the movie when it was at the theaters. My ancestors came from Donegal and County Tyrone, Ireland. There were so many wonderful contributions the Irish made when they came to America. They did backbreaking work for low pay and had to prove that they weren't all lazy, wild, drunks. Just when we think we may lose this kind of stereotype Mr. Scorsese makes this movie making the Irish look like crazy, fighting, murdering, cannabalistic, barbarians. I can imagine that Italian-Americans felt the same way while watching "Goodfellas", Mr. Scorsese! Don't do any of us any favors!

Rating:
Summary: Kindofsucked
Review: How many Acadamy Award Nominations? Wow, what a let down. Leonardo DiCaprio really can't act very well and he proved that yet again in Gangs of New York. The story is pretty good and I liked the acting of Danial Day-Lewis and even the cinamatography(sp?), but all that could'nt counter DiCaprio's poor preformance. Just how many crying scenes does he have in this movie? 8? 10? His character is a real wimp and so you just can't take him seriously as an avenging angel. Buy Goodfella's or Caligula but steer clear of this waste of money.

Rating:
Summary: By the ancient laws of combat?
Review: Allright, listen: I rented this film because my father recommended it to me. It was a frigging act of filial piety for chrissake. I watched the flick for about five minutes. During this interval, I spent the entire time talking bollocks at the screen. Then I turned it off.
The movie is pure disedification. For the first few minutes you get to see a teaming horde of Irish immigrants who are apparently living in a state of continuous gyration in catacombs beneath the city streets. These rejects then go topside to do battle with a poorly constituted militia of various and sundry Italian rejects. In the senseless violence that ensues, the viewer finds himself confronted with proof positive that most people's lives are utterly meaningless: first there are the gutter trash in the movie desporting themselves in this lugubrious and senseless fashion, then there is the further reality that this glorification of street scum is colluded in by an enourmous number of people, from the audience to the makers and backers of the movie, to the critical establishment. All so that your average wannabe gang-banging white suburbanite can go see a movie that convinces him of the hoary respectablity of being street filth. Hooray.

Rating:
Summary: Like the Emperor's New Clothes....
Review: Like the Emperor's New Clothes, this film appears to be more than it actually is.

Basically, they creators have taken a very uninteresting and not very innovative story line from a "B" Western, and I can think of many "B" Westerns that had more interesting stories, and clothed it in fancy period sets.

Ironically, the only real Irishman in the film has to do a New York accent while the Americans have to put on fake Irish accents.

Dull, dull, dull (and I consider myself a fan of Scorsese). As tedious as a bad Merchant Ivory film.

Rating:
Summary: Acting 101
Review: Gangs provides an interesting portrayal into the class and race issues that confronted NYCfs development into the melting pot that it is today. Like so many other centres of civilization, NYC was built on brutal power and control via any means and with endless casualties. Itfs shocking and sad to realize that we still face the same issues today that the immigrants and natives experienced in the Five Points in 1846. So much of our existence seems to have been brought about via the knife, gun, and club. Perhaps we shouldnft be surprised to see that racism and violence still permeate our lives 150 years later.

The story is a simple one of Revenge but Scorcese succeeds in developing a villain (Bill the Butcher) who we can relate to and identify with over the actual victim (Amsterdam Vallon). I donft believe that this was 100% intended but occurs more as a result of Daniel Day Lewisf incredible acting. He clearly steals the show and provides an acting class for DiCaprio and Diaz who literally wilt in his presence. At one point, I felt like I was watching Bill the Butcher as Bill the Butcher whereas with DiCaprio, itfs obvious that we are watching DiCaprio playing Amsterdam Vallon. I think thatfs the problem with some of todayfs actors. They cannot develop enough of a persona for us to separate the actor from the character.

The other point of worth noting is the violence. The fight scenes are brutal involving knives, cleavers, clubs, spikes, etc. Those who abhor onscreen violence may need to look away during some scenes.

Yes, itfs about 30 minutes too long, slightly disjointed, and suffers from miscasting (DiCaprio & Diaz) but the imagery, style, and Lewisf work provides enough reasons to see it.

Rating:
Summary: a Grand Epic despite weaknesses in character and structure
Review: Some (as Time Magazine, for instance) have felt that epics are outdated and "gone with the wind," after the days of Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars, and others like those. The epic will not go out of fashion though, and has still flourished in recent decades with the likes of Schindler's List, Titanic, Gladiator, to mention a few. Most of these (exception: Schindler's List) are meant to be mainstream ppular,expensive, "on-your_face" entertainment, with mostly male superstars in them and lots of violent action. Scorsese's film, "Gangs of New York," takes a more serious turn, applying a proven format to historical material, with somewhat mixed results. Loyal to his preoccupation with New York, harking back to "Mean Streets" and "Taxi Driver," Scorsese once more visits the city, taking a backwards leap into the nineteenth century, when both NY and America were still taking shape. The conflicts were ethnic and racial--white versus black, Irish immigrant versus the "native" American (who had been there since the Revolution); the movie actually tries to tackle these and other topics, and, somewhat overwrought by the effort, succeeds more or less as a documentary of those times than as a medium of entertainment. Viewers usually respond to actors and acting: thus Daniel Day Lewis's portrait of a sadistic butcher, leader of his gang of Natives was generally accepted as masterful, while Leo de Caprio and Cameron Diaz seem miscast to most. If you have seen the film and have reservations, I recommend Scorsese's excellent running commentary, which will at least reward you specific, detailed analysis of the film's aims, historical authenticity and overall vision of America's film mythmaker.