I suspect it'll be a forgotten film in ten years.

Rating: Null/10 (27 September 2003)

* 1/2 out of ****
You know how every year, there are usually a few best picture nominees that are completely forgotten and when you look back on them you wonder why they were even nominated in the first place. Well, Gangs of New York is one such picture. I have yet to see The Hours or The Pianist (heard nothing but great things about the latter), but so far, I've been quite disappointed by the crop of 2002 best picture nominees.
The plot to Gangs is really quite simple. Leondardo Dicaprio plays Amsterdam Vallon, whose father was murdered in a gang war by Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis) for control of the Five Points in lower Manhattan. Vallon, as a young man, returns to avenge his father's death, but becomes conflicted when Bill takes him under his care. There's also a lazily inserted love story that's purely on auto-pilot.
Gangs of New York is a film that's hard to categorize. Primarily, I'd say it's a drama, but a drama about what? The titular gangs are hardly given much depth or development, a surprise coming from director Martin Scorcese, the man who gave us Goodfellas. Almost as damning is the fact that Vallon's burning desire for revenge is hardly touched on (yup, after the prologue, we skip several years later). Instead, the movie often gives way to Dicaprio's love story with Cameron Diaz, and the two share the flattest romantic chemistry I've seen in recent years. Any scene just featuring these two is a pain to watch.
The opening battle sequence, while sufficiently brutal and violent, is a mess of a scene, looking more like a setpiece suitable for MTV than an epic drama. I'm talking about headache-inducing quick cuts, herky-jerky slow motion, cheesy wide angle shots, and extreme close-ups. Almost all the power of the scene is sucked out by Scorcese's odd directing choices.

Keeping the movie afloat and semi-watchable are Day-Lewis' performance as Bill and the production design. At least the film captures the look of the time period, if not necessarily the feel (in all honestly, I'm not sure what the "feel" would be like, given that I've never actually seen a movie about gangs of new york set in the 1860's). Day-Lewis is fine in his role, shining comfortably while most everyone else tends to slink into the background.
Scorcese hasn't done much worth mentioning lately, his last solid film being Casino, which was a virtual remake of his best work, Goodfellas. Running at nearly three hours, Gangs of New York feels even longer than it is, probably the harshest criticism I could give to a so-called epic.