Bad, really bad

Rating: 1/10 (7 May 2006)

This picture shows why Scorsese has not won an Oscar and why Jay Cocks should not have given up his day job as a film critic. The script is an absurd cartoon. Neither Scorsese nor Cocks gave a hoot about realism. A charging soldier with a bayoneted rifle is killed by a man with a knife?? Obviously neither Scorsese nor Cocks were in the military either. Boss Tweed spending so much time in the Five Points slum? I doubt if he ever dirtied his shoes there more than once, if at all. The absurdities in this script are just too numerous to mention. It's a shame that a man with Scorsese's talent sabotages it by blending cartoon fantasy with reality.