Ultimately Exploitative Work

Rating: 2/10 (16 June 2005)

It begins, unfolds, and ends with violence. True, there was much tension and wasted lives during the mid-nineteenth century New York centered around Tammany Hall and Five Points.
Frankly, though, when all's said and done, I much prefer The History Channel's more scholarly presentation to Martin Scorsese's version.
THC presents the pure facts, allowing the viewer to focus in on actual events from a historical perspective. Scorsese's film forces concentration on the director's and scriptor's own viewpoint. And since that attitude is very negative, that's what comes out. "The Gangs of New York" is an extremely negative film, exploitative and personally quite sickening.
It's too bad a most significant part of American history that has not before been fully depicted, has this long, cold, in-your-face work as its sole exemplar.
Nor is there any particular lesson to be learned here, no insight into cause and effect, and no offering to assist humanity to avoid errors of the past. It's as skewed as is the press media, with its main purpose merely to engage the attention and emotions-- not challenge or enlighten them intellectually, humanistically or spiritually.
That said, the film does offer the usual superb Scorsese acting and production values.