voiceover narration always a bad sign

Rating: 7/10 (13 January 2003)

I rarely review films at IMDB, but this one was so awful that I feel compelled to.
When a film has to resort to extensive voiceover narration to carry the plot, that's always a bad sign. This movie pays a great deal of attention to staging bloody fights and very little to emotion or story. As many have said, most of the movie resembles a gory music video, not a film.

DiCaprio has one expression [glowering] that he uses throughout the entire film. Cameron Diaz is fine, though she doesn't have a great deal to do. Daniel Day-Lewis is indeed marvelous, but although I'm a big fan of his I wish I hadn't seen this movie. Go watch In the Name of the Father again if you need a fix.
When the militia put down the rioting immigrants, all you can feel is relief -- they lost all our sympathy when they murdered and lynched innocent people. Scorcese appears to think we will still feel for the irish gangs by showing the rich of the city as power hungry hypocritical bigots. He fails. Every character in the film, with the possible exception of Cameron Diaz, is a turd.
They spent a lot of money on it, but it's a bad movie.