Falling short of being an epic

Rating: Null/10 (16 March 2003)

small spoilers
The gripping opening scene promises what looks like an epic, starting right at the beginning with narration in the first person. The father-and-son exchange is another hallmark for great things to come. Then comes the the marshalling of weapons which, in a way, is not unlike the final battle scene in Aliens (the second one, with an "s"), where Sigourney Weaver assembles hardware from the amazing arsenal for her showdown. The intensity is almost suffocating. The actual battle is extremely well crafted by Scorsese, and ends quite brilliantly. There is no villain. Such killing as we see is simply the course of nature, with no malice, the way you would kill a wild beast that is about to devour you, as explained by Caesar in Shaw's Crasar and Cleopatra. In a war on survival of the fittest, you can still honour your enemy after you have killed him.
With such an opening, a lofty epic seems in sight.
As the story unfolds, however, the Hollywood formula and predictability becomes more and more evident. We begin to see that Gangs of New York is more of a melodrama than an epic. It deals with raw passions, with little subtleties or intricacies of more complex human feelings. Not that there is anything terribly wrong with raw passions, but the story is also lacking in dimensions and breadth. Indeed, there's a bit of history thrown in, but the Civil War and the dawn of the human rights movement serve only as a vague backdrop. As the title aptly conveys, this is a story about gangs in Now York, no less, but certainly not much more. Scorsese tells it passionately, as his dedication and salute to the city. His visions of New York, some rather dark, is revealed to us in his brilliant mise-en-scene. We get a very entertaining film, but not quite an epic in the league of Braveheart.
Daniel Day Lewis is no Christy Brown here, but the fictional (I think)William Cutting, alias Bill the Butcher, who vows to drive every single Irish immigrant off his turf. Cutting's relationship with Amsterdam Vallon, his favorite apprentice but also (unkown to him) son of a man he killed in battle, could have been made more watchable. However, in order to capitalize on the explosiveness of his character, any shades of subtlety had to be sacrificed. DiCarprio's challenge of playing Vallon, a character rougher than most he has attempted hitherto, has been reasonably well met. An even gutsier treament would be to have him severely disfigured by Cutting when his identity is revealed. Cameron Diaz has demonstrated elsewhere that she is up to challenges beyond the glamorous roles. A good example is Being John Malkovich, in which she is almost unrecognizable. Here, however, she is back to a more familiar role which she handles with ease, but in which she has no opportunity to shine.
Finally, I'm sure most of the audience would notice the very final vision in the film, the World Trade Centre, and grasp the meaning.