So close to being the greatest film ever made.

Rating: Null/10 (14 January 2003)

I'll admit that I couldn't wait to see this film. The hype made me believe that this would be the most complete movie-experience of my life. Even without the hype I was expecting something huge due to the names involved, Di Caprio, Diaz, Broadbent, Day-Lewis and of course Scorsese. For a young sprog like me, what better way to attract me to a period drama (although if Tarantino did one it would take it a step further). From the opening scene I felt that my faith would be rewarded as Scorsese orchestrated a wonderful battle and laid the foundations of the story. Fantastically filmed and choreographed, it was exactly what I wanted from the film. However it couldn't keep up the standard that it had set so early on and the film began to drag at around the mid-point. It took far too long for Leo to be found out by Day-Lewis and even when it happened it wasn't used to it's greatest possible potential. I personally would have to liked to have seen Leo trying to live up to his father's legacy or hating himself for becoming to close to the man that killed him but it never happened. Yet even when things started to go well, I still believed that Scorsese wouldn't let me down and that I would leave the cinema on a high. It felt like it was all falling into place when Di Caprio hangs the dead rabbit on the fence, it was almost like Rocky going back into training. At this point I was sure that I would get the climatactic ending that I wanted and when the two gangs finally(it did take longer than was really necessary) marched into the streets I was on the edge of my seat. Yet I was left completely disappointed by a real sell-out ending. It had all the right ingredients to finish with the most epic ending in film history but it was more than slightly anti-climactic. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the movie, it is well worth seeing if only for Daniel Day-Lewis' breath-taking perfomance. If he doesn't pick up an oscar it will be the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of the planet. I was also very impressed by the end time-lapse which very cleverly brought us up-to-date and credit must be given to the set-builders who created an amazing recreation of New York. I was also overwhelmed by the amount of extras in each shot. Every shot was busy and filled with things to see. Overall Gangs of New York is still better than your average film and well worth a look but I was left empty and disappointed by the finale. I feel that it is a real shame to have wasted such potential so Gangs of New York gets itself 7/10