An attempted Masterpiece but it fails by a great margin and is by if one is rather generous, mediocre at best.

Rating: Null/10 (7 November 2004)

Martin Scorcea certainly wanted this to be his masterpiece... not really a good film though. Sad that his masterpiece should be... such an expensive and prenentious attempt.
It's quite interesting but really doesn't differ from the standard, boy sees father kills, vow revenge, is taken in by father's killer, turns against him and so on. DiCaprio and Diaz are never even above Luke warm in this film... and one wonders why they were even enlisted because compared to Day-Lewis they are mere specks in the wind
Considering the amount of violence in this film, the actual amount of blood is hilarious. You see people stab, shoot, slash, attack and so on but it's really only after the event you see blood. So much so that the not inconsiderable amount of violence shown is just a real joke, instead of the serious stuff it obviously should be.
This film, desired to be some kind of classic or important film bur really, it's not. It's just the run of the mill average time filler... and a long one at that. Don't bother unless you really want to see something about inaccurately portrayed 1850s New York.
Suffice to say that other than the Mayor and Day-Lewis, there really is no one to fill the role they are required.... and the musics is dire for the film, truly one of the worst sound tracks ever. No, this film is not really good. It had a lot of potential but manages to moot most of it.
4/10