GANGS OF NEW YORK

Cole's Rating: ★★★ ½

Jesse's Rating: ★★★

Director: Martin Scorsese
Year: 2002
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz
Genre: Crime/Drama/History
MPAA Rating: R

        Gangs of New York is a darn masterpiece. I can't say that it's one of Scorsese's best though, I mean after all, we're talking about one of the finest directors of all time (and my personal favorite). Although history hasn’t really appealed to me much before, this movie truly made rivalry among gangs during pre-civil war seem very fascinating. When a film has the power to harness your attention, keep it for almost three hours, and appeal to you an idea that hadn’t previously sparked your interest before, then it sure did its job.

        Leonardo DiCaprio (Scorsese’s obvious protégé) stars here as an angry boy, whose father (played by Liam Neeson) was killed, along with the defeat of his “gang”, by notorious “Bill The Butcher”, who leads the “Native Gang”. Daniel Day Lewis stars as Bill, and is as formidable as characters get. He’s Cape Fear’s Robert De Niro. But even worse, he’s more violent. So when DiCaprio comes back to New York, where his father was killed, he vows to take revenge on “Bill The Butcher”. Along the way, he meets a pickpocket, independent woman played by Cameron Diaz, who sleeps around to get what she wants, and gains connections by doing so. Then we are reintroduced to some of his father’s old gang, as he tries to play it safe as Bill’s apprentice for awhile, and then begins to rebel. It’s brilliance is immeasurable because it adds so many different factors to DiCaprio’s struggle. The only problem with it, is that it almost seems as if it’s a game of cat and mouse for some time. But in reality, I not only see Gangs of New York as a movie that tells a story of a man’s vengeance on his father’s killer, but I see it as a movie that chronicles a man’s frustration with a man of infinite power; and I also see it as a movie that unfolds the lack of excitement in a man’s life that has it all. That’s why Gangs of New York is so good; it has so many aspects of the story to look at. And as a moviegoer, it’s a shame if you oversee those, because it all adds to the film’s epic denouement. So if you watch it, you should pay attention. And you know what, you better watch it twice, because with each viewing, you’ll get that much more.

        Another thing that makes Gangs of New York so epic is that it takes a minimalistic plot line (revenge on “Bill The Butcher”), and turns it into a grand story of deceit, betrayal, and ferocity. Of course, this couldn’t happen without Scorsese’s gentle hand; he has a gift. He’s directed over 20 feature films, and not a single one is bad. Seeing as Gangs of New York was a highly expensive film to make, he did a superb job. Several times over the course of an interview with Paul Schrader and in other places, Scorsese admits that he did the best that he could with Gangs of New York, but it just wasn’t exactly the end result that he was looking for because he was rushed to a deadline, and it didn’t play out exactly how he desired it to. Through my eyes, it’s something to marvel at. But through a brilliant director’s eyes, it may not be his true goal. In order to meet standards with Miramax, Scorsese had to cut his original film from four hours, to two and a half. And he admits that “there is no director’s cut, this is the director’s cut.” He looked back at his work, and kept cutting it piece by piece, and realized that what he needed to make it a good film lied within the scenes that he had. It takes a true director to be able to do something like this. Not every filmmaker wants to cut his work like this in order to meet “standards” or the public audience’s best interest. But it’s not that Scorsese wanted to do it, it’s that he knew that he had to, and made peace with the fact that it would make it a better film. In my eyes, that’s the type of director that any moviegoer wants guiding the actors on screen, in that time that we spend mesmerized at the films majesty, and obsessed with the ideas it has to offer. Or maybe that’s just me.

-Written by Cole Pollyea

Jesse's Thoughts: Gangs of New York is over two and a half hours long, but it doesn't feel that way. It's well paced and saddled with a great performance (Daniel Day Lewis) and a lousy one (Cameron Diaz). The story of the film, which is well told, is still a little bit on the simplistic side (especially for a Scorsese movie). However, as a tale of revenge and deceit, it certainly is an entertaining one. DiCaprio's underplayed screen presence gels well with Day Lewis's towering, nasty betrayal of Bill "the Butcher" (You can't take your eyes off of Day-Lewis, not even for a second). To put it mildly, this isn't Scorsese's best work, but even an okay movie by him is considered a masterpiece for most directors.