You can see the money oozing from every frame. The sets. The costumes. The painstaking attention to authenticity. What is less evident is the point.
The film opens in 1846, New York City. A time where religious zealots no fiercely proud – if misdirected – nationalists band together to oppress and intimidate foreign newcomers. With the government disorganised and dealing with many other issues, most notably slavery, the group with the biggest stick gets the biggest say.
With such high stakes on the line, it is Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day Lewis) who lords over ‘The Points’, namely the area where New York’s five boroughs meet.
That’s the words, but in reality the talking point in Gangs of New York is the brutal and bloody gang battle that signifies Bill’s initial wresting of power. It is protracted violent and visceral, with a prog rock backdrop that lead me to ponder; when Zack Snyder does this, he is bagged mercilessly, how is Scorcese a genius for stealing his shtick?
The fierce battle leaves victims, poor old orphaned Leo DiCaprio returns to the Points a decade later as a noone named ‘Amsterdam’.
With the civil war now raging elsewhere, draining the community of money, spirit and the young men constantly being conscripted to fight, Bill the Butcher rules all, and has a piece of everything. He aggressively covets his territory and is infinitely suspicious of newcomers.
Within days Amsterdam is the Butcher’s right hand man and protege.
Days.
All he gets for his amazingly bold approach is unfettered access and trust from the man he wants to kill, a ridiculous love/hate relationship with a curvaceous pickpocket (Cameron Diaz) and an interminable wait before the totally inevitable. And even when the inevitable arrives they fuck it up.
Somehow in a long and largely boring film notable only for Daniel Day Lewis’s overacting – yes I said it – they manage to render the only possible ending unsatisfying in every way. Marty, we’ve waited three hours for this watching two guys who might as well be wearing white shirts saying ‘Goodie’ and ‘Baddie’ circle each other, at least let them play things out.
Moving on, the gangs are only a notch above those in The Warriors in terms of ridiculous outfits and themes. The firemen were my favourite… But the actual point of the film is one trotted out again and again, that of a young child who grows to avenge the death of his loved one. Which brings me all the way back to WhyBotherLand?
Why go to all the trouble to build an amazing world rarely seen on film, only to tell the same old film told a dozen times before?
Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. Gangs of New York is big money, big scope, big cast and, lamentably, small returns.
