A selfish indulgence I can't escape

Rating: 10/10 (22 February 2005)

Gangs of New York is a flawed picture, but oh what a masterfully entertaining flawed picture. Buoyed by the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill the Butcher, and quite possibly one of the greatest villains ever to appear on screen, the movie is a wonderfully detailed, semi-fictional account of New York in the 1860's--when the country was a political hotbed and the people were as ruthlessly dug in and divided as... well, today.
DiCaprio is good, and maybe great even. But how would we know? The picture belongs to the Butcher--perhaps DiCaprio's ability to allow the villain to shine as he is and not attempt to steal the spotlight is a credit to the young actor. After all, he's not really the main character--rather, he's the pair of eyes through which we see this complex war-torn, urban society. The main character is Bill Cutting, whose moral, political, and xenophobic complexities mirror the contradictions in all Americans, particularly of that period--though such contradictions have been the subject of American historical fiction for two and a half centuries.
Scorsese makes this picture the way it should be made, with caution to the wind and a heart bursting with vivid imagination that can be seen in every nook and cranny of the massive Five Points neighborhood on screen. He indulges in every turn to fill the film with multiple thematic elements, running at once both concurrent and in contradiction to one another. This creates a film that many people are uncomfortable with because let's face it: with all this going on, where's the plot? I think the plot, fragile as it is, only exists to deliver this world and its characters for us to observe, consume, and relish in. I certainly do. For all of its mistakes, it is a film I continue to watch over and over again, with a fascination I reserve perhaps for only three or four other films I have ever seen.
I love this movie, God help me.