Useless romantic subplot

Rating: 5/10 (18 February 2005)

When is Hollywood going to learn? If your story is compelling, and your characters are strong, you don't NEED to insert some useless romantic subplot.
I'll agree on the base with most reviewers who say Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill Cutting stole the movie. I really enjoyed his performance. I think his over-the-top scenery chewing was just what the larger-than-life character of Bill the Butcher called for.
DiCaprio wasn't so bad in his character, but he's just too cute to ever be believable as a street tough. Oh, Diaz? Was she even in this? I was lucky enough to see it the first time in a form in which I could fast-forward through the useless subplot between her and Leo.
I came into this film expecting my weak stomach to be very upset by the violence, but it never really comes home. The brutality of the first gang war was impressive, but it was the only real episode that illustrated the gangs. The film was hit-and-miss, from there.
The filmmakers missed BIG in getting distracted by Amsterdam's romance with that cipher of a woman (Diaz). You can fast-forward through every scene they have and not miss a bit of the movie.
The REAL romance here is between Amsterdam and The Butcher. The filmmakers shied, in fear, from showing the romantic relationship between Amsterdam and Bill. That was what was clearly being built, all the way. But because American audiences are too frightened to accept a male/male romance, they had to throw in that gratuitous hetero romance for Leo. Watch the film; the only logical end is for Bill and Amsterdam to be lovers.
The fact that the moviemakers were too constricted by Amurkan Valyoos to show a homosexual romance between two powerful male characters is what makes the later scenes between Bill and Amsterdam seem so fake. That's also what would explain the strange actions of Bill after the knife-throwing incident, when he knows Amsterdam is plotting to kill him.
Picture: Bill, a vicious man, has Amsterdam in his power, and he knows Amsterdam has been plotting to kill him. So he lets Amsterdam get away with just a burn scar? If Bill wasn't in love with Amsterdam, he would have truly mutilated him - taken an ear, a nose, probably an eye, which would have matched up with Bill's own handicap.
That's where the continuity gap hit hard - and it's not like continuity was being well-served, up to that point. Whether or not you like the idea of Amsterdam and Bill being lovers, Diaz' part was still totally useless, and should not have been in the movie. I'd like to see a version of this film, without her. Yes, and I will go ahead and make the same criticism often heard, on the IMDb: the combat wasn't realistic. I saw in that first battle at least twice as much carnage as showed up, at the end.
If you're gonna be real, be real all the way, like 'Saving Private Ryan'. Don't kill thirty guys in your opening battle, then end it with most of them surviving.
Oh, yeah. There's another point. After Bill throws his knife into Amsterdam's gut? If Amsterdam was wealthy and connected, he would have had a low chance of surviving it. As a poor street person, his chances of surviving after his intestines had been punctured would be nil. Peritonitis would set in, without professional help - and WITH the professional help, of that time, he most likely would still have died. A street kid who'd been stabbed would have just died.
The visuals were great - especially the gangs 'uniforms' in the last scene. The film itself was so disjointed, I'm hoping for better on the DVD - and I'm hoping I can cut out Diaz' scenes. The real romance in this film is between Amsterdam and Bill. Diaz is a cipher.