What Is Wrong With You People!?

Rating: Null/10 (10 January 2003)

Ok, I have a serious bone to pick here. One of the main complaints I've heard was how "overly long" Gangs of New York was and how "absolutley nothing happened" until the end. I'm sorry, but I must have missed the meeting where a film that doesn't fit within a digestable 2 hours or under is a piece of crap. Keep in mind that films like Taxi Driver are largely regarded as classics, but that film could have ended sooner as well. Imagine this, Travis Bickle, instead of going slowly insane, decides to "save" the young prostitute sooner, the film ends an hour and twenty minutes in, credits roll. The entire power of that film would seem meaningless. What the hell did you expect from this movie? This is Martin Scorsese, you should know you are not going to get an average, black-and-white, hero and villain tale here. He doesn't see things that way. Would you have rather have seen Amsterdam and Bill struggling through the city of New York, dropping their weapons and reaching for new ones, all the while escaping shrapnel from the cannons Matrix style? For Christ's sake people, what are you thinking? This isn't a film about revenge, looking at that way is like saying that Lawrence of Arabia is about the desert. In other words, you're wrong for looking at it that way. Revenge was only the setup for Bill and Amsterdam to meet as adults, and the ensuing relationship and confrontations are the product of all those long hours that you "wasted." Nothing happened?? Am I the only one here who saw the fire and absolute intensity leaping off the screen in the character of Bill the Butcher?? So not as many fights happened as you'd like, maybe Scorsese wanted to take his time in creating real characters before sending them out to die, please, exscuse him. If you don't appreciate this film, that's your loss, not mine. Perhaps I saw a different film, because the audience I saw this film with sat in silence long after the credits began to roll, and stayed that way until reaching the parking lot. It was almost as if we had experienced a trauma, shell shocked, we must have looked strange to those waiting in line eagerly for other films. Your opinions are your own, and that applies to me to. But it would be wrong for me to stand by while you people attack a film in an attempt to sound like you know what the hell you're talking about. Don't bother, you don't.