May not be a classic, but who cares?

Rating: 8/10 (25 February 2004)

This film seems to fit in the category of " love 'em or hate 'em", and if asked to choose, I would have to align myself with the first group. The movie has its flaws ( a somewhat distracted and unfocused plot, a throwaway love story, and a wandering Irish brogue affected by Leonardo DiCaprio, among others), but I was sufficiently impressed by the Wagnerian scope of the whole enterprise to the point where these minor flaws didn't concern me.
If nothing else, Daniel Day-Lewis' performance made watching "Gangs" worthwhile, simply to enjoy the gusto with which he brings to life the vicious, Irish-hating gang boss Bill Cutting. With his odd accent and even odder fashion sense, this character could be taken for a cartoon at first glance, but the xenophobic rage underneath this facade reveals itself frequently in both words and action, letting any and all know that this guy is to be taken seriously. As both antagonist and warped father figure to DiCaprio's character, Bill displays a complex and self-contradictory nature that begs the viewer's scrutiny. Here is a man who openly despises anything and everything Irish, yet he has an Irish right-hand man, and in Diaz and DiCaprio, two Irish surrogate children. And, for all his psychopathic brutality, he still maintains his own peculiar code of honor, in which he holds in highest esteem the memory of his mortal enemy, who also happens to be...once again, Irish. Day-Lewis renders this monster believable and, at times, sympathetic. In contrast, every other actor's performance pales in comparison, but there are no major complaints on this score. DiCaprio, Diaz, and the rest effectively inhabit the grim world that Scorsese creates for them in all its squalid glory. If these characters offer little emotional engagement to warm our hearts to their plight, it may be for the simple reason that they themselves are emotionally dead, incapable of any passion but the desire to survive. As for the movie's look, it is authentically grungy, right down to the hogs rooting in the street, but it is also lush and beautiful in its cinematography and costuming. The painstakingly reproduced New York of the mid-19th century is a wonder of cramped tenements and dingy saloons that sucks you into the despair of a city on the verge of disaster.
In spite of its extended length, I found the film to be well-paced, and it moved along briskly. I did feel that the climactic ending was a little rushed and didn't quite play out as expected, but that wasn't enough to mar the whole film. Without getting into any debate over the historical accuracy of the events depicted, I was left with a sense of gaining some insight on a nearly-forgotten chapter in our nation's history. Not a pretty chapter, necessarily, but a fascinating one nonetheless.