Daniel Day Lewis the ONLY reason, and reason enough...

Rating: Null/10 (13 March 2003)

A film of Shakespearean proportions and ambitions. Unfortunately Shakespeare didn't write or direct it. And it shows.
That said, Daniel Day Lewis is ASTOUNDING as Bill Cutting and worth enduring all GONY's weaknesses for. I have rarely seen such an outrageous character played with such truth, and that includes any of DeNiro's work with Scorsese. DeNiro's Jake LaMotta is a great performance, but LaMotta's not an outrageous character, so it's easier to locate and act LaMotta's truth. Travis Bickle... still not as outrageous. Cutting is a character of Falstaffian size and Day Lewis tackles him full on for three hours with boundless Cagney-like energy. DDL is THE actor to beat on March 23rd.

My cineaste friends all wonder what this film would have been without Day Lewis, and we conclude not much. A few sparks from DiCaprio and Diaz, but nothing special. Fabulous production design, good editing by Thelma S. as usual, but about as much structure as Bringing Out the Dead, which is to say, hardly any. (Where's Paul Schrader when you need him?) Scale, sets, character count and budget do not an epic make. Scorsese is simply not an epic director and probably never will be. Scorsese is without peer when he directs what he knows. No one else could create a Good Fellas. But Age of Innocence should have been a warning; stay away from history. House of Mirth is much better Wharton. Marty is simply not a David Lean, he's not a Spielberg, not even a Polanski (my vote for Best Director this Academy season). Maybe Harvey and Bob W. knew this and it's why they blanched when the GONY budget kept balloooooning.
This is a hugely distorted history by a man with one theme on his mind - the workings of force, intimidation and mob dynamics on a struggling underclass - and that theme is an important nail to hammer over and over. Scorsese knows it New York style better than anyone - for OUR era, culled from his own childhood. But apply the Scorsese touch a century and a half earlier and you wind up with melodrama, and that's what this inauthentic "epic" is. Except for Day Lewis, I'd rather watch "Who's That Knocking" again than this. Or Michael Mann's Insider, which has compelling story with its grit, and no need for axe and cleaver mayhem (see Braveheart for that).

If you're an acting fan, you'll be drawn into GONY again and again if you run across it on cable - thanks to Day Lewis. If you're a Soprano's fan, you can thank Martin Scorsese, because without him, there would be no Tony Soprano. But all that notwithstanding, buy or rent Marty's best work - Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Good Fellas, Cape Fear, etc - not this shapeless shantytown opera.