Scorsese's epic fails to deliver the goods

Rating: 6/10 (23 February 2006)

There was an air of uncertainty about this movie when it approached its release. Most of the reports were favourable: Scorsese's best, DiCaprio back on form, a fantastic performance by Daniel Day-Lewis and such like... But films always seem to be brilliant before they open, Van Helsing was even touted as a great movie before release, as were War of the Worlds and Eyes Wide Shut (two other films by excellent directors that fell well short of their writing, acting and directing potential).
What was more ominous were the suggestions that Miramax supremo Harvey Weinstein had got involved in the editing process, Martine Scorsese originally wanted to do a two part, Kill Bill style piece, DiCaprio was more pleased with his work on Catch Me If You Can and that there were real problems with continuity despite the film's whopping great run time. These little asides, which I occasionally read in newspapers or on film sites (like this one), all provided the ghost of a doubt in my mind that Gangs of New York might just have been a bridge too far for Scorsese and his talented cast...
Unfortunately, those doubts were right on the money. Gangs is a mess: overlong, overblown and underwhelming. There are massive problems with many of the characters, from their motivations to their accents, while despite the time-line involved, with the events of the American Civil War going on in the background, there's little explanation as to just what a cloud the Irish immigrants and New York residents were living under at the time.
The story is fairly straightforward. Amsterdam Vallon (DiCaprio) is the orphaned son of Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson), who was the leader of the Irish contingent of the Five Points, a hotly contested, poverty stricken area of Manhatten. A young DiCaprio witnesses his father's death, in a massive brawl, at the hand's of Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), a larger than life, blood curdling 'patriot' who regards the immigrant Irish as a plague that should be excised from the bosom of his fair city. Bill is also a gang leader and, with his victory over Priest Vallon, he cements his control over the Five Points. So far so standard revenge setup.
Amsterdam disappears off to an orphanage, emerging, supposedly in 1863, as the bearded DiCaprio. He returns to the Five Points, penniless and hungry but with brains and brawn to match a bizarrely limited amount of ambition. Surprisingly, he soon finds himself in the employ of Butcher Bill, his father's murderer need I remind you, and quickly rises through the ranks to a position of trust. However, eventually Leo remembers that this is a revenge film and that he has to take down the Butcher. He fails, initially, but comes back in a number of ways, politically for one, to eventually take Bill on in another Battle of the Five Points.
OK... one might start to see where the discontinuity comes in. DiCaprio doesn't seem to know whether he's meant to be a scheming, backstabbing Irishman throughout or a loyal man torn between his father and his surrogate father (who murdered his first father...). Similarly, like Cameron Diaz's Jenny Everdeane, Leonardo has real trouble with the Oirish accent and both actors spend much of the time seemingly waiting to hear 'Cut! Do it again and try to sound Irish this time!' Jim Broadbent is equally unsure about his morally repugnant political worm while John C Reilly and Brendan Gleeson have similar troubles with their characters, the first a loyal man turned bad-guy mercenary, the latter a mercenary turned good-guy... None of them are remotely comfortable with their roles and it shows.
So why 6/10? Three words: Daniel Day-Lewis. The Last of the Mohecians (or at least his adopted son) is simply earth shattering as the mangled 'patriot' Bill Cutting, chewing up the scenery and stabbing it and slashing it and punching it and so forth. He is a revelation as the Butcher and it is when the camera is on him that Gangs rises above mediocrity.
Therefore Gangs pulls itself up to 6/10, an erstwhile attempt to portray a difficult period of America's history (it never occurred to me to wonder what was happening in New York during 1863) that fails because of, to be honest, a less than clear understanding of what it is meant to be: a closely knitted tail of three people or a huge panorama of a scavenging society in a state of war (both with the South and with each other).
Neither perspective is realistically portrayed, hence the failure, while only one of the actors involved seems remotely confident in what he is doing. Scorsese meant for this to be his big Oscar film and it shows, from the holding back of his usual flourishes to the painstaking attempts to be serious and understanding, rather than his justly flippant treatment of the incredibly pompous world of Italian gangsters. Instead of the usual Martin Scorsese, who has seen his best work routinely ignored by the Academy, we get a man trying to do what he thinks is expected of him in order to win the coveted gong. Personally I hope he sees through his mistake and goes back to making the brilliant films we all know and love. All I can say is: show em two fingers and keep producing Goodfellas, Martin, Gangs and The Aviator just aren't the same!