Whoa, some perspective please...

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2003)

I think a lot of you are being very hard on this film. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and not just because I'm Irish...in fact yes, a lot of the accents made me cringe into my seat. But then, a lot of people seem to forget, the character Leo diCaprio is portraying is a young man who has spent his whole life in New York, so of course his 'Oirish ' accent is going to be a little bit skewed, just as it would be in 'REAL' life. As an Irish native I can tell you, and just about everyone else who lives in this country would back me up, that it's not at all unusual to meet a friend who has just come back from a working summer in the US talking with an American accent, and trying desperately to keep it up for the next 6 months until they realise that they sound ridiculously phoney, and then grow out of it. If there's a fault to be found with this movie, it's that the last 45-60 minutes of the movie try to cover too much, and the viewer gets a sense of scenes being rushed. I think a lot of people, including Americans, who are not familiar enough with the historical period which serves as the backdrop in which the story is set, and the FactUAL events portrayed in it, and which did actually occur, will be hopelessly lost in the last hour of the film. No loss. If you're not interested in the history of the period, and you're just looking for a few cheap hours' thrill, you've got no business going to see this film, because, like I say, you'll only get confused.
Yes, it has it's faults, it is a flawed film...like every other film that was ever made. But it's a story. Set in a historical background. Just like most period epics. Deal with it. And as for those who have suggested that it's just another boring, re-hashed story about 'vengeance'...a word of advice - go back and watch it again. Pay particular attention to the 'Oscar' scene (Butcher's soliluquoy with the US flag draped around his shoulders after Amst wakes up beside Jenny) and watch more closely during the 'climactic duel'. If you can't see what's actually going on there, you're blind. I admit I was surprised as well, and initially thought the ending didn't fit the story up to that point. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that Scorsese was working on something quite subtle, something I couldn't really put my finger on at first. But several hours after leaving the theatre, it all made sense, and it's something which transcends the hum-drum, senseless, pointless violence we all ee depicted on our screens every day of the week, something which trascends genre, nationality, ethnicity, so-called vengeance...it disappoints me that a film of such meaning and depth has been lost on so many amateur 'critics' who just can't see the wood for the trees, especially in America, post 9/11/01, and to think that Di Caprio's latest film 'Catch Me If You Can' is outperforming GONY at US box offices since both their releases,...is very, very sad indeed.