New York's Five Points: The Gate to Hell : America Born In The Streets

Rating: 10/10 (4 August 2007)

Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became The World's Most Notorious Slum
Boss Tweed: The appearance of law must be upheld at all times! Especially when it is being broken.
Welcome to the Five Points, New York City's wretched slum along the East River. Across its mean streets battle lines are forming. It's 1836; on one side of the street stands Priest Vallon (the mountebank Liam Neeson) with Celtic Cross in hand; on the other stands William Cutler (Daniel Day Lewis) the local butcher and 'civic leader' of the down and out Nativist faction. Growling and sneering speeches precede the brutal work of the day, the battle for control of the Five Points.
The battle ground is Paradise Park at the heart of The Five Points in lower Manhattan, officially named the Sixth Ward, the "Bloody Auld Sixth," where there was at least one grog shop for every six people. Most immigrant Irish and the poor native neighbors rarely sat in anybody's pew though religion ostensibly was the point of contention between the inhabitants of the ill-light rickety next to slaughter houses, stables and breweries.
In the first battle, the Nativists prove the strongest. The heaviest wave of Irish immigration is yet in the future. Setting the Irish to flight and killing Priest Vallon in the fray, Cutler's henchmen capture the priest's son and commit him to a Protestant orphanage on Blackwell's Island.
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Bill Cutler as diabolically violent as he is does have an interesting tale to tell as he drapes himself in the American flag. The orphaned son of an American soldier killed in a British massacre Cutler despises the British and their affected American counterparts even more than he hates the Irish. Cutler has many insults for the Irish but his main complaint with them is that they have cheapened the value of American labor. Cutler is the stuff from which Labor leaders in a generation then yet to be born were cut from.
Cutler boasts that he closes his hand on the Five Points like a bloody fists. Democratic politicians kowtow to Cutler: Cutler delivers the votes that keep the venial, corrupt Democrats in power.
Daniel Day-Lewis slices up an electrifying, overpowering performance in his role as Bill the Butcher Cutler. His manner, accent and handlebar mustache topped by a stove pipe hat capture the lower class New Yorker of his time.
Yet, though grey has not cropped into Cutler's mutton-chop sideburns, time is marching on aging Cutler. Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCapria) is coming of age. Released from custody, Amesterdam tosses the parting gift The Bible in the River as he marches home to the Points. He's out for vengeance but first he serves a stint as Cutler's henchman until his identity is unveiled. The twisted Cutler might have liked have to acknowledged Amsterdam as a son. "I never had a son," says Cutler. A Hollywood ending was not in store.
Leo DiCapria rendered a magnificent performance as the American born son of the Irish priest. DiCapria variance between the New York accent and an affected pseudo-Irish one might have unintentionally caught Amsterdam's difficulty in deciding which side he belonged to. In the end, Amsterdam's decision is made for him when he is pushed out of Cutler's natives after a betrayal by a friend.
A new Argamenon is slated; the opponents face each other across Paradise Square. The final battle is disrupted by a barrage from a ship in the harbor aimed at the draft riot nearby.
This film has all the makings of the great cinematic masterpiece. Camera work recreates the historical setting. The film's touches of multiple overlaying ironies are worthy of a Shakespearian tragedy. The corrupt democrats, the rigged elections, the raging Civil War and the New York uprising against the draft in the backdrop add depth to an understanding of the period.