Bad movie, historically inaccurate, and a propaganda piece.

Rating: 1/10 (7 May 2006)

This film is a propaganda piece of the anti-American, anti-Protestant, and anti-war faction of the far left in Hollywood. It features heroic Roman Catholics pitted against venal Protestants in the classic format of cowboys versus Indians. Poor Catholics are immediately recruited as cannon fodder for Mr Lincoln's war, and the rest are preyed upon by hostile Protestant inhabitants of New York. The good Catholics (played poorly by Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio), fight against injustice and for their "rights" denied them by the Protestants, even though as immigrants just off the boat they have no knowledge or appreciation of America, its history, or the obligations of its citizenry. When the draft is instituted and Catholics are named for reporting for army duty, riots break out, with protesters killing, looting, lynching Negroes and defying federal troops. Somehow the director shifts the historical blame from the Catholics and features Protestants rioting, with the Catholics falling victim to the Army, Navy and rioters. Obviously, Mr Lincoln's war is not one that should be fought by the poor. How liberal of the directors and writers -- perhaps they would fight. But no, more appropriately all wars are bad. The director, Martin Scorsese, has seen fit to lionize DiCaprio's band of criminals as builders of the city and standing for diversity, even including a Negro in his gang. At the end, the anti-war message is no longer subtle -- the shots of the cemetery going to seed while the city grows to include the WTC towers "proves" the futility of war. Of course, the towers were already gone in 2002 when this film was made, but to show the loss of the towers would be contrary to the director's point. All the talk about "that a city is built from the streets" is so much camouflage for the true message in the film. The director and writers need to learn that a city is not built by its poorest and criminal elements but rather by the hard-working middle class and capitalists willing to invest in the city.