Rating: 
Summary: And you thought modern New Yorkers were nasty....
Review: Although I was familiar with this period of New York history I admit I was spellbound. Leo DiCaprio may not be brilliant but compared to Keanu, Leo's like Richard Burton. My only real gripe is the anatomy lesson. We get the message. Watching people hack each other to pieces--even New Yorkers--is not entertainment to me.
Rating: 
Summary: five points gets five points!!!
Review: When I first got this movie I was sceptical about its content, it's name, it's cover, it just looks really clichéd for its type. However, believe me people when I tell you not to look at something before judging it. The first few scenes of this film got me straight into it, blood and gore was its main objectives of getting the audience's attention and not only that but it was precise in understanding the film's plot. The film itself is based in the five points, which is situated in the centre of the poorest part of New York. It is here where the Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson) is killed by Bill Cutting (Daniel Day Lewis). At 5 years old Amsterdam Vallon lives with this problem that his father has been killed by Bill and later (16 years later) he returns as the mature man who we can associate as Leonardo DiCaprio to avenge his father's death by befriending Bill and secretly endeavouring the way of his death. The character Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz) is the female who helps Amsterdam and at the same times plays between him and Bill until she finds she is in love with Amsterdam. So, this story has been seen before. However, the aspect of this film that makes it so enjoyable to watch is firstly the setting. The bleak era of the 1850's and in the infamous city of New York, at that time the most corrupt city in the world. The film shows that to survive here one would have to kill, steal, street bludgeting, be a prostitute or enroll in the American army. Also the city is shown as an escape route for the Irish, who immigrated to America to be relieved from the persecution of the English and the potato blight. Their misfortune is increased once again when the Americans persecute them and on arrival to the city made to enrol in the US army to fight in the civil war. Secondly, the riots and fighting scenes are definitely not to be missed, especially the first scene, which makes emotions run high. Lastly, the level of sympathy and understanding for all the characters increase the film's quality. I've been going on for a long time now so I'll cut to the last sentence: please everyone see this movie for sentimentality, blood, gore and even history!!!
PS: The bonus DVD when bought with this film is excellent, featuring a 360° view of the entire setting of the film and over 3 hours of extra footage.
Rating:
Summary: The gorgeous history lesson outweighs the weak story ...
Review: I was delighted by this movie. I've been a history buff since childhood, and I found myself immersed in a movie that really shows what it was like to live in the past. It wasn't glossy; it was gritty and real. Unfortunately, the revenge storyline has been done too many times. Also, while we're supposed to be hating Daniel Day Lewis' Bill Cutting and rooting for underdog Leonardo DiCaprio, I found the reverse happening. Lewis was so captivating and DiCaprio so lifeless that I couldn't help hoping for Amsterdam's failure in his mission to kill his father's murderer. For me, the storyline was just something to keep the movie going while I watched history unfold.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply Awful
Review: I cannot believe how much I disliked this movie. I'm really surprised. So much potential. If only it had a more believeable story and characters worth devoting three hours of my life to. Alas, I found it outlandish and the people cartoonish. The word atrocious actually comes to mind. For some strange reason I kept expecting them to break out into song (DDL in particular). And I kept staring at that horrific "moustache" he was sprouting. I'm not usually this harsh, but, God, it was so bad I can't help it.
Rating:
Summary: Can't Find Enough Bad Adjectives
Review: Violent, unoriginal, prolonged, simplistic - not necessarily in any particular order. Manipulative from the start, our protagonist is shown as a young child witnessing his father's violent death in a gang confrontation. Without explanation, the movie tells us to accept that the father was such a hero that his enemy, our antagonist, worships him years beyond death. Rote recital of period gang names and slang words tries to establish historical credibility. The plot unfolds predictably as our protagonist returns to avenge his father's death. Daniel Day Lewis does Snidely Whiplash, Leonardo DiCaprio looks for Kate Winslet, and there's just not Something About Cameron. It's hard to believe that life was so awful or everyone would be dead through gang violence or their own hand. It's hard to see what is going on with Where's Waldo style scenery viewed through lenses laden with dust from the last century. And there are definitely better Irish tunes. Wasteful, void, offensive - there are some more adjectives.
Rating: 
Summary: Scorsese needs more people to reality-check him...
Review: Meh. This is a painfully heavyhanded, broadly played, on-the-nose, over-the-top dud. Scorsese just can't help himself, can he? I recall reading reviews of this film which concentrated on Daniel Day Lewis's supposedly delicious turn as a villain -- but his role was one of the central weak points the film, and was, in all honesty, just a rehash of the same old, tired, badguy schtick that Robert DeNiro does with equally belabored relentlessness. Anyway, a potentially fascinating story -- of the outlandishly violent, corrupt gangs that ran New York City in the later 1800s -- is ruined by Scorsese's blunt, pointlessly aggressive direction and a remarkably unsubtle script. You can practically hear him goading the actors on keep "giving more" and indulging their hammiest impulses. Thus, the film is drowned in a deluge of overly-obvious violence, cheap melodrama and garish visual design. If done right, this could have been a masterpiece. As is, it's a real stinker. Wish I'd skipped it.
Rating:
Summary: Ok, but not great
Review: Leonardo DiCaprio does a passable job Amsterdam Vallon, who watches his father get killed in a fight over possession of the Five Points with Bill the Butcher. He comes back later and swears to get revenge. Ironically, when Amsterdam meets Bill, Bill takes him under his wing and can't go anywhere without him. But Daniel Day Lewis steals the show. He is amazing as Bill the Butcher, the leader of the Natives who is at times a little psychotic. He is merciless to his enemies and is suspicious of everyone. Cameron Diaz plays a small part as an irish immigrant that survives by her pickpocketing skills. She is better than DiCaprio but no one in this film is better than Lewis.
The only thing that saves this overly gory and violent film the the shocking realization of how hard life was in New York during the Civil War and Scorsese's incredible shots and amazingly realistic sets. Of course you could do without about 20 minutes of the film but Lewis's portrayal of Bill the Butcher and Scorsese's amazing shots more than make up for it.
Rating:
Summary: A really bad let down
Review: I had great hopes for this movie. As a native New Yorker of Irish descent I was looking forward to seeing a movie where the abysmal early experience of the Famine immigrants would be acknowledged and honored and I might be able to catch a glimpse of my home town in the middle of the 19th century. I also knew that Martin Scorsese, another native New Yorker and a great director, had been intent on making this picture for 20 years. It had to be great, right? Wrong! Instead of the movie I expected, I got a depressing story of revenge against a background that is at all times too busy, too confusing and too unreal. I know a great deal of praise has been given to the sets, but I can't see them as anything more than plywood. Maybe that's because I know those streets and the buildings that remain (many of them are still there, just a block away from the courthouses were one does one's jury duty). In fact, farther uptown I live in a slightly renovated tenement that was built within a decade of this movie's period. And the film lacks balance. Its focus is on the lowest life of the poorest people (with occasional glimpses of the life of the richest), with the thieves, pickpockets and prostitutes and ignores the many more numerous people who were struggling to make an honest living against fearful odds. Indeed, in its single, and simple minded, focus on the low life and the story of mindless revenge, it misses the really big story of the time. This was the story of how the poor of New York came to resent the Civil War and the events of the draft riots. Yes, there are a few short vignettes of the riots toward the end of the movie, but most of them are so fleeting that they are no more than glimpses. And, without the voiceover narration for those scenes, they would be incomprehensible, since they are totally unrelated to the main story. There is not a single sympathetic character in the film, with the possible exception of "Monk" McGinn (Brendon Gleeson). This character and that of the truly repulsive "Bill the Butcher" (Daniel Day-Lewis) are at least three-dimensional and alive. The rest of the characters are one-dimensional, like the sets. This must be due to the talent of Mssrs. Gleeson and Day-Lewis, since the script doesn't help much. Mr. Day-Lewis is, as most commentators have acknowledged, the best thing about this movie. He completely dominates it. But part of that dominance has to be the fact that there is no one to challenge him for it. What a pity! The DVD itself is good quality and has lots of extra features. The best of these are the two historical background programs. And the glossary of terms was very helpful, since the movie is full of this otherwise incomprehensible slang. In fact, the only reason I would invest in owning this DVD is to acquire the extras!
Rating:
Summary: Wildly Overrated and Overwrought
Review: That this over-produced yet strangely under-developed film received any positive reviews is a testament to the respect film-lovers have for Martin Scorcese. If "Gangs of New York" had been directed by someone like Michael Bay ("Pearl Harbor"), it would have been hooted off the screen. Unfortunately, if I went into this film without prior knowledge, I'd suspect "Gangs" was a Michael Bay film -- it's full of half-baked ideas floating in a sea of often incoherent violence. The problems are legion. The screenplay, for starts, goes from servicable in the first half to ludicrous in the second. After painstakingly setting up a world in which mere survival is an almost impossible ideal, the filmmakers have their disgraced hero, Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio), go from pariah to political mover in about three scenes. For all the film's attention to detail, Boss Tweed is depicted in the broadest, most stereotyped terms. Meanwhile, the lead characters expend great energy, but the narrative fails to keep their arcs alive and believable. And that brings us to the acting. Oscar voters were right to pass over Daniel Day Lewis. His performance is entertaining, but it's pretty much one-note scenery chewing. Had Day Lewis won, the Academy would have had to retroactively honor Jack Nicholson for his turn as the Joker in "Batman" (that may sound over the top, but then, so is Day Lewis). With Day Lewis faltering, it's no surprise that a less experienced lad like Leo also suffers. He tries, but he's not credible as the fearless leader of men who drives roiling New York to the brink. Finally, there is the overall balance and flow of the story. That's Scorcese's bailywick, and the master isn't up to it. He wants to do everything -- grandly -- and ends up creating chaos where there should be taut narrative energy. The film's final sequence, in which gang violence clashes with a broader city uprising, is so unfocused it undercuts the small amount of genuine passion and human interest the filmmakers had managed to generate. The ending is bitterly anti-climactic -- even Bill the Butcher deserved better. Finally, the critics who praised "Gangs" out of loyalty to Scorcese ought to be ashamed of themselves for conning innocent movie-goers as coldly as the Five Points' sharpies hoodwinked passerby. It's as if the the critics believe being honest about the director's failure here would somehow dim the brilliance of established masterpieces such as "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "Good Fellas." The irony is that for me and many more like me, being burned by the critics' rote praise for "Gangs" means I'm less likely to spend dime one on the next Scorcese film.
Rating:
Summary: This is the stuff of which movie legends are made!
Review: An epic on the scale of "Gangs of New York" only comes once in a blue moon. The film's scope is so great that Scorcese's literally and figuratively utilized the proverbial "cast of thousands". Mammoth sets and period costuming accentuate the story of a young man seeking revenge against the man that slew his father many years earlier. A secondary element of the plot is its tale of a country in transition. The emergence of the "gangs" in New York is a reflection of the various ethnic groups that made up much of the immigrant populations and the clashes of such strong Old World cultures. The corrupt city officials that ran New York at the time are also part of this riveting story. Daniel Day Lewis's "Bill the Butcher" is the kind of reprehensible character that audiences love to hate. Lewis embodies the character's warped sense of patriotism with a swagger of bravado that is magnified on the big screen. When given the right role, DiCaprio shows his mettle as an actor. "Gangs" gives him that in the part of "Amsterdam Vallon", a young man seeking vengeance as well as respect for his people. Cameron Diaz's "Jenny Everdeane" is miles away from anything that the actress has done before or since. Henry Thomas is also impressive as DiCaprio's friend and betrayer. One of the great mysteries is why this film did not sweep the 2003 Academy Awards. It should have for all parties concerned. But, the world, especially the Oscar-voting contingency, is not a fair place.
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