Visceral story of revenge, friendship, love and bigotry

Rating: 9/10 (15 February 2003)

This movie has `epic' written all over it. Fascinating throughout, Scorcese fires a highly unusual story through many twists and turns without ever losing sight of his most important characters.
The story is about the conflict between Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day Lewis) a bigoted but respected Don-type who runs early New York. Bill hates the Irish who he sees as coming in off the boats and getting their citizenship for nothing while he has fought for his corner (against an earlier set of Irish immigrants) and jealously guards it against all comers.
Bill's rival in the story, Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo Di Caprio) is a brooding vengeance filled youngster and multi-scarred poorhouse survivor. He's haunted by the death of his long lost dad, a fighting priest who Bill killed but still grudgingly respects. However the story is complicated by the fact that as Bill has became older his faith in his vision of a pure New York without the Irish seems possibly less important to him than having someone to leave his `empire' to, and indeed many of his associates are his former enemies.
The real stand out in this film is (of course) the astonishing Daniel Day Lewis who gives a complex multi-layered performance of which even Robert De Niro would be proud. Day Lewis has a convincing American Accent with a Bronx twang which may or may not have existed at the time but somehow works anyway.
The casting of Leonardo Di Caprio is justified by a moody yet restrained performance by Leo, looking extremely bulky and tough, fittingly so for the character he plays. Given Day Lewis and Scorcese's past work I'm sure many parts of the story from the awful costumes to the strangely named gangs, have been minutely researched and it has some similarity to the truth. Like Braveheart before it however, that's not the point.
This is a visceral story of revenge, friendship, love and bigotry. The whole cast is committed to the task and everyone in a very large cast seems to fill their role admirably. (Jim Broadbent is typically good as a slimy politician). The subject matter is controversial with almost continual violence throughout and a script which is necessarily often nasty in it's emphasis.
Even myself whose links to Ireland are a few generations out of date, still felt my blood boiling at the treatment of our Celtic brothers. The resulting warfare results in no winners however and it is part of the magic of Day Lewis's performance that even though one dislikes his racist and evil character you can still understand his mindset and his sense of honour. In fact occasionally you find yourself (almost) rooting for Bill at the expense of Di Caprio's vengeful rival who Bill adopts unknowingly as his `heir'.
The film says a lot about racism and the stupidity of it without preaching in a complex and interesting tale. A difficult undertaking but brought off with signature style and substance. Cameron Diaz is also well cast, bringing warmth, sassiness and some needed comic relief to her role as a beautiful (but scarred) pick pocket survivor who warms to Leo, but is also emotionally attached to Bill, her father/protector figure.

A wonderfully non-happy and pointless ending puts all the previous squabbles into perspective with a glorious montage rounding off an extraordinary effort. Altogether, a bold and brilliant film from the greatest director of our time.