chopped look for an ordinary film

Rating: 6/10 (30 January 2003)

I had heard that this film had been cut from 4 hours 30 minutes to a less back-aching 3 hours before I ever stepped inside the cinema to see it. But it was painfully obvious after only 15 minutes in, that this was the case. Scenes jumped (literally) from situation to situation. One famous one where Leo is holding a bag over his shoulder from his POV / down by his side from Henry Thomas' POV and so on and so on ..... It was such an obvious editing mistake that I don't know how anyone could possibly miss it ..... unless of course their head was fried from cutting an hour and half out of a film and still trying to make it look seamless.
It didn't work.
The film suspended belief right from the off... but I was willing to go into that mode in the hope that I would get swept along with the story. I did - just about - for the first 2 hours but then it descended into farce.
The final hour where everything comes together on one day - riots / final confrontation with Bill the Butcher and Amsterdam Vallon / cannonball attacks / friends ratting you up - just does not hold water. The film smacks of "we're running out of money so let's wrap this up as soon as possible". There is absolutely no sense of drama in the final showdown - no build up, no suspense, nothing. Just simply bang-bang you're dead. Roll the credits.
The message it is trying to deliver is of the futility of war but the necessity to fight for what you have. A paradox if ever there was one.
As for the actors - Day-Lewis (as usual) is superb / Leo does well as does Diaz and Gleeson. The sets - okay but not as grandiose as I was made to believe by the glossy Film mags. The violence - well there's certainly enough of it and graphic too (the head-butting scene is especially stomach-churning). The storyline - if Scorcese had kept it as a simple, straight-forward boy-comes-back-to-avenge-father's-killing story it would have worked better. The whole issue of the politics / the draft / riots just muddled things up and lengthened the film unnecessarily.
It's no epic and will not remain long in people's memories. However - the DVD release should be interesting to see if a director's cut is given and for all those deleted scenes.
6/10