Recreating a Slice of Time; Educating, Edifying and Enchanting its audience, all at the Same Time!

Rating: 10/10 (22 January 2009)

SPANNING the length of the entire from the very first frame of film right up to the very end, GANGS OF NEW YORK (Initial Entertainment Group/Miramax Films, 2002) bursts onto the screen like a an exploding super nova in the heavens; continuing to apply its vice-like grip to its audience up to the very end. It is a most unusual film, unique beyond belief. It qualifies as a truly singular work of cinematic art; standing alone with none other quite like it.
TO begin with, the meticulous manner in which the sets replicating New York City's Five Points Neighborhood of the late 1840's to the early Civil War 1860's, immediately transports its viewers to this other place in those days long gone. Unlike most other movies viewed, there is none of the ever present, underlying feel of the knowledge that it is all make believe.
CAREFULLY casting the main players, Director Martin Scorsese brings a much larger principal cast than usual. Featured players are divided between those with name recognition (Star Power-if you will), and those 'faces' that make their mark by giving memorable performances in their portrayals of characters passing through the story.
HEADLINING the superb cast are such luminaries as Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz and Liam Neeson; being joined by such capable performers as John C. Reilly, Henry Thomas, Cara Seymour, Stephen Graham and Gary Lewis.
MIXING all of this on screen talent with some of the most spectacularly unique and starkly realistic and other worldly sets ever; Director, Mr. Martin Scorsese gave us what one could only describe as a bit of American History that had come alive on the screen.
WE, of course realize that film is not reality and seldom captures real historical happenings. GANGS OF NEW YORK is, alas, a screen play; a make believe story which has been concocted to give its audience a well spent couple of hours.
INASMUCH as it has been said that there is no such thing as strict fiction, we know that real influences from real living people. In the case of this GANGS saga, it is also one of those movies that fall into the category of an Historical Picture; being the cinematic equivalent of the Historical Novel.
HISTORICALLY speaking, Mr. Scorsese's film served us very well on multiple fronts.
FIRST of all, it brought to vivid, life-like on screen realism to the City of New York in the late 1840's through the period of our American Civil War. In order to do so, sets replicating the slums of Five Points and other locations in old New York were constructed in that Italian Movie Studio.
THESE sets were extremely impressive and came with such a price tag, that it has been said that we won't be seeing their likes again; opting for computer generated sets, scenery and backgrounds would prove to be much more of a frugal approach to the creation of spectacular scenes. Our case in point is the Russell Crowe starring vehicle, THE GLADIATOR (DreamWorks/Scott Free/Universal Pictures, 2000), which made use of some spectacular, computer generated imagery.
SECONDLY, the story brought to light a period in our own American History that appears to have little representation in our popular fiction. It was a time of a Native American Political Party, also known by the common moniker of "The Know Nothing Party." The 'Know Nothings' had a very simple and uncomplicated, straight forward sort of manifesto. They hated all things immigrant, legal or not. At this time, it was legal immigration that was streaming in from Ireland and the German States and Principalities.
THIS should serve as a good example to all that the people on the bottom rung of the American ladder were not always non-whites; but rather two European, Caucasian Ethnicities, who incidentally now are the two most numerous groups to which Americans trace their descent.
THIRDLY, little is said in most of our Primary and Secondary School's History Books about the New York Draft Riots, which were so vividly and graphically portrayed here. Certainly the total chaos of the riots and the pointless and pitiful death and destruction of property that ensued is at once both disturbing and enlightening in portrayal.
THERE is a particularly intense concentration on the wanton and senseless violence and destruction that is invariably the product of the Mob Mentality. There was one sterling example of the product of such anarchical behaviour. In those riot sequences, the White Immigrant rioters start to attack any and all of the Free Blacks, who they encounter in their destructive, malicious sweep across Manhattan Island; even hanging one of the young Black Guys who was earlier shown to be a member of one of the White Five Points Gangs.
AS a final shock to the viewing audiences was the depiction of the U.S. Naval vessels in their desperate use of cannon fire to bombard rioters. This is a most disturbing sequence in the film; made ever so much more alarming by the cold realization that it was factual.
IN our humble opinion, we believe that Martin Scorsese deserved some more consideration for Oscar with this Film. Although it probably did not do the great traffic at the Box Office that the Studio would have liked, it did much better than an also ran. We believe that time will be very kind to this GANGS OF NEW YORK; declaring it to be in a class with the top films of all time. It is a one of a kind, unique work of Cinematic Art; not unlike CITIZEN KANE, CASABLANCA, THE THIRD MAN and Chaplin's CITY LIGHTS, even!
WE (both me buddy Schultz and Meself) give it as many stars as possible! See it, rent it or better yet, buy a copy for your home Video Library.
POODLE SCHNITZ!!