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Gangs Of New York- 12/20/02 - R - 168m
Leonardo DiCaprio
- Amsterdam Vallon
Daniel Day-Lewis - William "The Butcher" Cutting
Cameron Diaz - Jennie Everdeane
Director: Martin Scorsese
LYN
Okay class…attention
please! Why do we tell a story? Perhaps it's to inform or maybe just to
entertain? But what if the story isn't all that entertaining? Because
in it's revealment it fails to show evidences in the least of any prevalent
information? What if I were to regale you with a wondrous tale such as,
I don't know, how about…"I went to the grocery store last Tuesday."?
Not a very exciting saga, but informative nonetheless. But, what was the
point? Exactly! There wasn't one. And with that in mind, I give you "Gangs
of New York".
The film starts out quite intriguingly enough with the dawn of cold winter's
morn and the smell of impending death in the air. The combatants agreed
on the prize, cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. With a crescendo
of Verdi fused industrial blended music, the mêlée erupts.
The warriors clash with handmade weapons of olde, until the mighty fall,
the battlefield stunned quiet, and inevitable to the Victor, the spoils…Wow!
Cool! But wait then fast forward 16 years later…and what do you
have left? The other 2 hours and 53 minutes of the mire (loosely called
a film) to trudge through.
Unfortunately the rest of this Martin Scorsese (directed) and Jay Cocks'
(screenplay) tale doesn't make much sense. The characters are all overly
absorbed in their own little pathetically unimportant existence's, none
of which are in the least bit interesting by themselves let alone collectively.
The main element that fuels the flames of the story is "Revenge".
But, that itself is reduce to a waning ember, by the obviously mounting
lack of plausible motives for our hero Amsterdam Vallon (played by Leonardo
DiCaprio) to extract his retaliation that was practically his birthright.
The film now beholds to the idea that you almost can't help but respect
and admire the reverence the villain; William 'Bill the Butcher' Cutting
(played by Daniel Day Lewis) holds for his fallen adversary by his own
hand low those many years previous. Thus losing any inkling of a basis
for vendetta. But wait, to make things worse, it's as if the filmmaker's
just said, "Oh yeah…by the way, we should probably find some
way to get back to that vengeance thing." And of course they get
miserably lost along the way and the film just falls apart at the seams.
There are no real understandable reasons why anyone is doing anything
anymore. The only thing I do understand is that this movie's script should
have had stayed back in 1978 where it came from, and taken the same ill-fated
route of "Heaven's Gate".
One (and the only) bright and shining note in the movie was the outstanding
performance given Daniel Day Lewis as William 'Bill the Butcher' Cutting.
Simply riveting. Bravo! And if they could give him and Robin Williams
(One Hour Photo) "Best Actor" Oscars this year, what a wonderful
world this truly would be. : )
Lyn