Gangs of New York

Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: This movie was very well done. It's about the gangs that came about in NY--this was mainly between Irish immigrants and NYers in high positions. It's horrific to think that immigrants went through that. DiCaprio did a great job. I hardly recognized him. I'd highly recommend this movie, especially for the historical aspects. What these immigrants went through is amazing. What's more amazing is that they stayed and thrived and have not complained since. Very admirable group. The movie is a little gorrey, so if you have a weak stomach, beware.

Rating:
Summary: The Piece of NYC History that We WEREN'T Taught in School!
Review: Martin Scorsese, in his distinguished 35+ year career, is most famous for doing gritty, violent films set on the streets of modern-day New York City. With GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002), he has created a film that is a rather polished period-piece, set in mid-19th Century NYC---and is perhaps his most violent film to date. However, what is most important about this film is what it succeeds in doing. What it succeeds in doing is to bring to life a part of the history of New York City that is never discussed in grade school---even in New York City itself.

Having been born and raised in the largest city in North America, and living most of the first 31 years of my life there, I can tell you from experience that the New York City of the mid-19th Century is only peripherally touched on in the NYC public school curriculum---at least it was when I was a kid! Sure, in Junior High School we were BRIEFLY taught about William "Boss" Tweed and the corruption of his political machine known as Tammany Hall, but it never received any serious study. After watching my DVD of GANGS OF NEW YORK, I believe that the lack of study on the subject was a serious mistake.

Martin Scorsese did more than just serious study---he brought this relatively unknown chapter of my city's history to life. You may say that he tells a rather traditional revenge story within the confines of a period piece. Even so, he still completely captures a time and a place with such startling clarity of detail that it is never anything less than intriguing---you actually feel like you've been transported back in time to 1846 at the beginning of this picture.

This is when Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson, in another powerful and gripping performance) leads his band of Irish immigrant men, known as the "Dead Rabbits," in street battle against the "Natives," led by Bill "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis, to whose performance we will get into later), for control of the desperately poor but strategic Five Points area, situated on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. (On a modern-day map, you can locate it as the dividing line between Little Italy and Chinatown, with Little Italy to the north.) Bill mortally wounds Priest Vallon, and proceeds to order his men to make sure that Vallon's young son Amsterdam (Cian McCormack) is well-taken-care-of. Young Amsterdam escapes, and proceeds to spend his next 16 years vowing revenge on The Butcher. When we see him next, he is fully grown and, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, begins to slowly insinuate himself into Bill's gang while feigning "pureblood" status. But, as he begins to be taken under Bill's fatherly wing, does he become too ensnared in his new life and become a pawn of Cutting's growing dominance? Is his quest for revenge too full of hurdles? Does he really have what it takes to avenge his father's death? These are all the questions that Amsterdam finds himself asking by the midway point in the film---and that is where I will stop.

In his role as Amsterdam Vallon, Leonardo DiCaprio finds the right tone for his performance. No longer the innocent man-child of some of his previous films, Leo has matured noticeably. His character here is in the finest tradition of Greek tragedy. I like his subtle variance of speech patterns that convey to us what is untold to his listener. Let's face it, he will never be another Robert De Niro (his co-star, incidentally, in THIS BOY'S LIFE as well as a former Scorsese favorite) but then again, who else is? In my humble opinion, Leonardo has come a long way as an actor; still remember him for the last season of "Growing Pains?"

In his role as Bill "The Butcher" Cutting, Daniel Day-Lewis thankfully came out of a five-year, self-imposed retirement from acting to create the greatest role of his storied, and stormy, career. His reading of Bill isn't so much a reading as it is the embodiment of everything for which he stood. Modeled after the real-life "Butcher" William Poole, Day-Lewis creates not a human monster, but a dangerous man with extremely deep convictions, as misguided and misplaced as they were, and full of deadly charm. To create his performance, he put himself back in the place, the time, the man. In doing so, he created one of the most unique, and chilling, villains in recent dramatic history. Daniel Day-Lewis was robbed of what should have been his second career Oscar for Best Actor.

I feel that Martin Scorsese was also robbed, as well. It's bad enough that he has never won the Best Director Oscar, especially with an oeuvre that contains at least seven or eight certifiable classics---but to not win for this film was positively criminal. I know, thanks to the Harvey Weinstein backlash, Marty probably lost any chance he ever had to win the coveted award, but still I think the Academy should have looked past the backstage wrangling and honored Scorsese's work on its own merits.

Also worthy of merit here are the Art Direction (should have also won here), Cinematography and Supporting Actor performances by Brendon Gleeson, Henry Thomas and Jim Broadbent (as the "Boss" himself). Cameron Diaz, as the only female love interest, fares nicely and does well as a period pickpocket and possible instrument of revenge. Included on the stylish 2-disc DVD set is a wonderful, informative hour-long Discovery Channel documentary, "Uncovering The Real Gangs Of New York," plus a History of Five Points featurette and, of course, the director's commentary. There is also the nicely-done U2 video for their Oscar-nominated song "The Hands That Built America." You should build your DVD library with great movies such as this one.

MOST RECOMMENDED

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST MOVIE OF 2002!
Review: Gangs of New York was the best movie of 2002 and the
best movies of all time!Daniel Day-Lewis should have won
best actor! This movie was a lot better then Chicago. Some
people didn't like it because they said it was mostly violence,
but it isn't just a movie where it has all violence and no plot.
I don't like Leonardo DiCaprio but he did a pretty good job.
If you want to find out about a rarely discussed part of history
or just want to see an amazing movie Gangs of New York is

definitely worth seeing!

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not great.
Review: Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" rips up the postcards of American history and reassembles them into a violent, blood-soaked story of our bare-knuckled past. The New York it portrays in the years between the 1840s and the Civil War is, as a character observes, "the forge of hell," in which groups clear space by killing their rivals. Competing fire brigades and police forces fight in the streets, audiences throw rotten fruit at an actor portraying Abraham Lincoln, blacks and Irish are chased by mobs, and Navy ships fire on the city as the poor riot against the draft.

The film opens with an extraordinary scene set beneath tenements, in catacombs carved out of the Manhattan rock. An Irish-American leader named Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson) prepares for battle almost as if preparing for the Mass--indeed, as he puts on a collar to protect his neck, we think for a moment he might be a priest. With his young son Amsterdam trailing behind, he walks through the labyrinth of this torchlit Hades, gathering his forces, the Dead Rabbits, before stalking out into daylight to fight the forces of a rival American-born gang, the Nativists.

Men use knives, swords, bayonets, cleavers, cudgels. The ferocity of their battle is animalistic. At the end, the field is littered with bodies--including that of Vallon, slain by his enemy William Cutting, aka Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis). This was the famous gang fight of Five Points on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, recorded in American history but not underlined. When it is over, Amsterdam disappears into an orphanage, the ominously named Hellgate House of Reform. He emerges in his early 20s (now played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and returns to Five Points, still ruled by Bill, and begins a scheme to avenge his father.

The vivid achievement of Scorsese's film is to visualize this history and people it with characters of Dickensian grotesquerie. Bill the Butcher is one of the great characters in modern movies, with his strangely elaborate diction, his choked accent, his odd way of combining ruthlessness with philosophy. The canvas is filled with many other colorful characters, including a pickpocket named Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz), a hired club named Monk (Brendan Gleeson), the shopkeeper Happy Jack (John C. Reilly), and historical figures such as William "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent), ruler of corrupt Tammany Hall, and P.T. Barnum (Roger Ashton-Griffiths), whose museum of curiosities scarcely rivals the daily displays on the streets.

Scorsese's hero, Amsterdam, plays much the same role as a Dickens hero like David Copperfield or Oliver Twist: He is the eyes through which we see the others but is not the most colorful person on the canvas. Amsterdam is not as wild, as vicious or as eccentric as the people around him, and may not be any tougher than his eventual girlfriend Jenny, who like Nancy in Oliver Twist is a hellcat with a fierce loyalty to her man. DiCaprio's character, more focused and centered, is a useful contrast to the wild men around him.

Certainly, Day-Lewis is inspired by an intense ferocity, laced with humor and a certain analytical detachment, as Bill the Butcher. He is a fearsome man, fond of using his knife to tap his glass eye, and he uses a pig carcass to show Amsterdam the various ways to kill a man with a knife. Bill is a skilled knife artist, and terrifies Jenny, his target for a knife-throwing act, not only by coming close to killing her but also by his ornate and ominous word choices.

Diaz plays Jenny as a woman who at first insists on her own independence; as a pickpocket, she ranks high in the criminal hierarchy, and even dresses up to prey on the rich people uptown. But when she finally caves in to Amsterdam's love, she proves tender and loyal, in one love scene where they compare their scars, and another where she nurses him back to health.

The movie is straightforward in its cynicism about democracy at that time. Tammany Hall buys and sells votes, ethnic groups are delivered by their leaders, and when the wrong man is elected sheriff he does not serve for long. That American democracy emerged from this cauldron is miraculous. We put the Founding Fathers on our money, but these Founding Crooks for a long time held sway.

Scorsese is probably our greatest active American director (Robert Altman is another candidate), and he has given us so many masterpieces that this film, which from another director would be a triumph, arrives as a more measured accomplishment. It was a difficult film to make, as we know from the reports that drifted back from the vast and expensive sets constructed at Cinecitta in Rome. The budget was enormous, the running time was problematical.

The result is a considerable achievement, a revisionist history linking the birth of American democracy and American crime. It brings us astonishing sights, as in a scene that shows us the inside of a tenement, with families stacked on top of one another in rooms like shelves. Or in the ferocity of the Draft Riots, which all but destroyed the city. It is instructive to be reminded that modern America was forged not in quiet rooms by great men in wigs, but in the streets, in the clash of immigrant groups, in a bloody Darwinian struggle.

All of this is a triumph for Scorsese, and yet I do not think this film is in the first rank of his masterpieces. It is very good but not great. I wrote recently of "GoodFellas" that "the film has the headlong momentum of a storyteller who knows he has a good one to share." I didn't feel that here. Scorsese's films usually leap joyfully onto the screen, the work of a master in command of his craft. Here there seems more struggle, more weight to overcome, more darkness. It is a story that Scorsese has filmed without entirely internalizing. The gangsters in his earlier films are motivated by greed, ego and power; they like nice cars, shoes, suits, dinners, women. They murder as a cost of doing business. The characters in "Gangs of New York" kill because they like to and want to. They are bloodthirsty, and motivated by hate. I think Scorsese liked the heroes of "GoodFellas," "Casino" and "Mean Streets," but I'm not sure he likes this crowd.

Rating:
Summary: Spectacular, gritty violence, in an America since forgotten
Review: Inspired by Martin Scorsese's lifelong fascination with the obscure early history of his city, Gangs of New York is an epic tale of gang warfare set in the "Five Points" slums of mid-1800's New York City. It stars Leonardo Di Caprio as orphaned street urchin Amsterdam Vallon, son of the legendary Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson), an Irish immigrant gang leader killed in the opening battle by Bill "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day Lewis), leader of a powerful, anti-immigrant gang. The film follows Amsterdam's quest to avenge his father's death, in the process taking a fascinating glimpse into what New York probably resembled at the time- in all its filth, squalor and violence.

...the acting performances are inspired and gripping. Englishman Daniel Day Lewis, having perfected his Irish brogue with his Oscar-winning performance in In the Name of the Father, makes a successful switch to what's almost a modern New York cabbie accent. It is unknown whether this accurately reflects the "true" New York accent of the early and mid- 1800's, however, as the main inspiration for representative speech tones was a recording from a much later date (1892) by the poet Walt Whitman.

Despite her flaming hair, Diaz is less successful as Irish trollop Jennie. Traces of her modern American accent occasionally creep through (though she does carry out the role of immigrant harlot with gusto). While Di Caprio is fairly believable as the son of slain Irish gang leader Priest Vallon, the short time frame of the film invites ambivalence to his part. The film expects boyishness- Leonardo's signature characteristic- from a quite young would-be supplanter, while simultaneously requires a toughness Di Caprio seems to lack (not helped by his omnipresent floppy conductor's cap). Ultimately, was this a role for Leonardo Di Caprio or for Brad Pitt?

Perhaps this ambivalence owes to the length of the film- much longer than your usual Hollywood movie, clocking in at 2 hours and 40 minutes. The film could easily have been shorter while still delivering on the same basic plot; some reviewers have wished this were the case. However, it could also have been longer. One wishes to have seen more of Amsterdam's ill-fated, almost sanctified father, the fundamental source of the Butcher's mythic, all-consuming fear, and of course the driving force for Amsterdam's quest.

...However, the film does seem to contain some more compelling points for serious reflection today. First of all, the depth of racism and anti-Union fervor, even in the heart of the North, dispels the myth of Yankee righteousness and resolve. Secondly, the apparent feeling of New Yorkers that they were both above the law is remarkable and unimaginable in today's America. In the film's span of 15 years, however, we witness a transformation from a primitive, neglected and somewhat wild city that was left to its own laws to the uncompromising control of the federal government- displayed by the US Army's mowing down of its own citizens in the final scene (the Draft Riot).

Read the complete version of this review, and many others- at Balkanalysis.com

Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER MARTIN SCORSESE MASTERPIECE!!!!!
Review: SINCE THERE ARE SO MANY REVIEWS ON THIS MOVIE I WILL JUST SAY THIS: LISTEN TO ALL THE GOOD REVIEWS FROM THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT AND IGNORE ALL THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS FROM ALL OF THE STUPID PEOPLE!!

Rating:
Summary: A waste of time
Review: I was really excited when this movie came out. Instead what I saw was a three hour waste of time. The stellar cast did well enough with what they had, but the script was not well written. The movie jumps from plot to plot, with many unneccessary scenes. And just when you think we've settled into a plot line for the rest of the movie, bam! The actors are off with some new unplausible story. The ending stretched for far too long, and was not a satisfying conclusion to the movie. The elements were all there for movie of the century, but it didn't come anywhere near expectations. The critics were so wrong this time. You're not missing anything if you pass on this movie.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed Bag, but still Scorsese
Review: Apparently Martin Scorsese has been wanting to film "Gangs of New York" for over three decades, and - like many a director's long cherished project - the final result is something of a mixed bag.

One of the reviewers of the Herbert Asbury book that inspired Scorsese's interest wrote: "Herbert Asbury's underworld is an underworld, not a region of heroes. The stage and the screen will look to it in vain for the broken-hearted gentlemen who turn to crime out of a frustrated goodness, and there practice honour among thieves, punctilio towards their victims, and eloquence upon the world at large." He continued: "The book has been written by a newspaper man who does not mind denying himself the pleasure of melodrama."

All of this might make Asbury's book seem an ideal trawling ground for Scorsese. After all he has been presenting us sociopathic and self-involved characters on and off for the whole three decades he's been interested in this book. He's also been presenting us with interesting, flawed, and conflicted characters.

Ironically though, even from the preview of the movie of "Gangs of New York", you can pick up the idea that this is a story about a kid who witnesses the murder of his father, vows to grow up and kill his father's murderer, and then falls in love with a woman who is involved with his intended target. That preview suggests a conventional enough story to have put some people I know who usually like Scorsese off seeing the movie altogether.

That's a pity, because it does contain some remarkable film-making. But they are not totally wrong to be put off either. The strength of the film lies in the milieu, in the world around the main characters. The fault lies in the fact that the central story is precisely the kind of melodrama that the reviewer was congratulating Asbury on avoiding.

Asbury's book is fascinating reading, suggesting as it does the true mean streets of early New York, a lower depths of vice and depravity in which the Five Points area saw a murder a night, most of which went unsolved. This was - the book suggests - such a tough world there was not much room for the niceties of moral distinction. Most of the inhabitants were conditioned into dog eat dog responses, into the belief that if I can take something from you, I deserve it more than you do ands it's rightfully mine. This really is the moral milieu of the sociopath or psychopath.

However, either Scorsese, his producer, or his writers (Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan) has decided that to find our bearings in this world we need more conventionally sympathetic characters. The result is that the central character: Amsterdam Vallon, played by Leonardo diCaprio, is probably the least interesting central character ever to have graced a Scorsese movie. Apart from the revenge and romance plot, he's presented as almost a champion of the underdog, fighting against anti-Irish prejudice on the part of those who consider themselves true Americans. In reality, life in the Five Points seemed much more self-centred than that.

This is depressingly conventional Hollywood story plotting, as is most of Amsterdam's romance with Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz). Disappointingly their first encounter is even a "meet cute" of the kind I had hoped I'd never see in a Scorsese film. Is it a coincidence that one of his writers, Jay Cocks, was an uncredited author of the first draft of "Titanic"? Di Caprio's character here isn't as one-dimensional as his Jack in the Cameron film, but he is certainly not the kind of multi facetted protagonist we've come to associate with Scorsese.

Things are made rather more interesting by the chief villain of the piece, Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis). He's the guy who killed Amsterdam's father, and Day-Lewis's interpretation of him is courageous and complex. If he wasn't up against Jack Nicholson's masterful performance in "About Schmidt" I'd have said he was a shoe-in for the Oscar. He might get it anyway. At times he's a moustache twirling villain, almost a cartoon, at others he's a man with a twisted sense of honour. He's dangerous and as liable to turn on you as reward you, but you get some idea of why he inspires a certain loyalty.

All in all the bad guys are throughout more interesting than Di Caprio's character. There's Jim Broadbent as corrupt Tammanny Hall politician William "Boss" Tweed. There's John C Reilly (probably the year's busiest actor) as Happy Jack. And there's Brendan Gleason as Walter Monk McGinn.

Less successful is Henry Thomas as the sometimes ally of Amsterdam Vallon, Johnny Sirocco. One reason he's less successful is that he's used to bring another corny plot device to life, being in love with Cameron Diaz's character, and making a wrong choice when he sees her falling for someone else. It's frustrating sometimes how uninteresting, conventional and clichéd the alleged good guys are.

Still, for all its flaws, "Gangs of New York" is a remarkable film. The opening, which soon develops into a pitched battle between a gang called "The Dead Rabbits" and another that calls itself "The Natives". It's almost a surreal vision. Sometimes we seem to be in a world of science-fiction, at others in a surreal environment, at still others in a medieval pageant or even in Mad Max. Dante Ferretti's production design, Michael Ballhaus's cinematography and Thelma Schoonmaker's driving editing are complemented by music from modern performers like Bono and Peter Gabriel.

Overlaying the gang warfare is a background of racism against blacks, the ongoing American civil war and the highly unpopular draft into the army, corruption in city hall, and ultimately the devastating draft riots. Apart from its skill as film, the journey into all these areas creates a remarkable vision of the times. Many of the characters are based on real life people in Herbert Asbury's book. It's just a pity that some of them have been dolled up a bit too much for Hollywood. "Gangs of New York" is a film you should see, it may even be a flawed masterpiece, but in my view, there ARE weaknesses you should take into consideration in order to avoid disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Get real
Review: I am laughing at the guy from "Athens Greece" who knows NOTHING about the United States or the Civil War .. the so called Draft Riots were not , they were Irish led Race Riots and 500 people were killed by the rioters including Blacks (the main victims) Protestants and Business men and women.
Yes US troops had to come in under arms but there were NO "bombardment" of NY .. only by the English during the Revolutionary War.
Obviously this guy from the good old boy south (not Athens Greece) is still upset over the Slavery crimes of the south.
Read a fine book called Black Blue and Gray by Jim Haskins for the FACTS.
This movie was a Leftist revisionist MESS without fact or historical relevance.

Rating:
Summary: Good history, good story, needless blood
Review: I loved the interpretation of New York in the middle of the 19th century with its competing fire gangs, police thugs, corrupt city officials and local neighborhood gangsters. Although set in the 19th century it represents and describes a lot about New York City and other major cities today. There are gang wars over turf and drugs, corrupt city officials and police officers who shoot unarmed men 41 times in the back or use toilet plungers for interrogation and intimidation. Gangs of NY portrays a down side of city life that the regular medial looks the other way at and fawns all over corrupt city officials and their blue uniformed gangs. That part is worth seeing. I was disappointed in the level of blood that was depicted, and the deviations from history. There were draft riots in NYC, but the navy didn't shell the city as depicted. The meat cleaver scene was around the bend.