Imagine a fantastic story about how America dealt with the Civil War from beyond the battlefield. No? Okay, how about a violent epic about the war between greenhorns and natives (not real natives, but people who happened to get there before the other immigrants), both sides fighting for a country they love. Not working for you? Fine, how about a simple revenge story about a young Irishman out to avenge his father’s death at the hands of a charismatic and dangerous butcher? All right, last-ditch effort, why not a love story between young Irishman and a beautiful young pickpocket. We’ll get Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz!
But then, somewhere along the way, someone said, “I like all of this, let’s smash it all together in one two and a half hour movie and pawn it off as an American epic!” Welcome to Gangs of New York.
To sum up the main plotline in the simplest manner possible, DiCaprio plays Amsterdam Vallon, a young man out to avenge his father’s death by murdering the powerful and murderous William “Bill the Butcher” Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis). Poor families are dealing with the threat of a draft taking their men off to fight for the Union in the Civil War, and for good measure, New York has about ten different gangs, though you never get more than a sentence description about them. You get Cameron Diaz as Dicaprio’s love interest because attractive people need to have sex and fall in love. Amongst all these plotlines we see New York City as a rebellious youth, forcing people to either get their hands dirty or be swept aside in the ensuing chaos. Unfortunately, none of the American epic gets left in the background as the numerous smaller stories vie for the audience’s attention. Thus, an inability to tell one story in a reasonably intelligent manner becomes the undoing of the entire film.
But what kills me about this film are the glimmers of greatness. You have moments of brilliance in each of these various plotlines. The film finally finds a heart when it comes to immigrants getting off a boat only to be handed a rifle, a uniform, and an order to die for a country they hardly know or at the opening battle between the immigrants and the natives. You’ll see absolutely incredible set pieces and intense action sequences. However, these glimmers get lost when you start to hear techno music and sit through plotlines that go nowhere for forty minutes at a time. Toss in a worthless romantic subplot and it’s not hard to see why it ends up coming off like the work of an amateur who’s in way over his head rather than an old hand like Scorcese.
Rather than showing off the skill and genius that created such films as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas, Scorcese looks like he left some bumbling production assistant (or Harvey Weinstein) in the editing room while he went off to go do a documentary about why film is good. Sadly, I know he’s going to get at least a Best Director nod from the Motion Picture Academy. He might even walk off with an Oscar because Academy members will feel bad for the past mistakes of screwing him out of an award three times.
The one constantly good force in this film is Day-Lewis. If there is a reason to see this film, it’s to see Day-Lewis chew the scenery like nobody’s business. Bill the Butcher will go down as impersonation fodder alongside such names as Hannibal Lecter and Tommy DeVito. As for the rest of the performances, it isn’t that the actors are untalented. DiCaprio, Diaz, John C. Reilly, and everyone else have absolutely nothing to work with and the characters fail as a result. (Though it is nice to see Reilly in a role beyond the Poor-Shlub Husband).
But hey, there are those who have fallen head over heels for this film. I guess if muddled plotlines, hordes of empty characters, idiotic direction and a few glimpses of greatness get you in the theatre, then don’t miss Gangs of New York.