A harrowing picture of war and its consequences. A masterpiece.

Rating: 9/10 (20 December 2002)

In the tradition of war movies, there are certain elements that remain constant - the love interest, the friend who turns to foe (sometimes the foe who turns to friend), and always vengeance for some past wrong. Martin Scorsese's latest masterwork, "Gangs of New York," contains all of these, but it's not a traditional war movie. "Apocalypse Now" is one of the most effective war films ever made, but not because it's about war - it's about the effects of war, which, if handled correctly, are far more interesting than battle scenes. "Gangs" has much in common with "Apocalypse Now," and yet, the two are not comparable.
The plot is fairly standard fare for war films - Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis) kills Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson), the father of Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo Dicaprio) when he is a young child. Amsterdam is then sent away for sixteen years, at which time he returns to his old stomping grounds, the Five Points, and swears revenge for his father's death. During the sixteen year absence of Amsterdam, Bill the Butcher has become somewhat of a Charles Foster Kane in the Five Points. Every business in the district pays tribute to him, and he controls pretty much everything from politicians to the fire departments. Through chance, Bill meets Amsterdam, and without knowing his true identity, takes him in as a sort of foster son. There are twists and turns, revelations and regrets, but I will leave you to see these yourself, because watching this film unfold is one of the greatest delights I've had in the theater this year.
What we have here is a portrait of violence. In the beginning of the film, we see Amsterdam look at his father and his gang, The Dead Rabbits, with a quiet awe. Of course, he knows that his father kills people, but they fight for the right to live in the Five Points in relative peace. We are given a glorified view of the war between the immigrants and the "natives." Leonardo DiCaprio captures this perfectly, as the naive boy who is too hell-bent on revenge to see that his foe is not the monster he wishes he was. Daniel Day-Lewis's Bill the Butcher reminds me of Paul Cicero from "Goodfellas," in that he's a good man with bad business. He holds Amsterdam's father in the highest regard, calling him "the last good man [he] killed." Every year on the anniversary of the first battle, Bill holds a ceremony to celebrate and honor Vallon's death. Amsterdam sees this as an insult to the memory of his father, where Bill sees it as an homage. The two become as good of friends as is possible under these circumstances, until the inevitable conflict comes to the surface.
In "Being John Malkovich," Cameron Diaz showed us that she could act. Here, she shows us that she can act quite well. I had my misgivings about her being in the film, but I can see that she was the right choice for the part. She looks like someone whose been through enough struggle and still remains beautiful, if not flawed. There is a scene which looks like the setup for a sex scene between her and DiCaprio, but instead of sex, we have the two comparing scars beneath the surface. She doesn't know about Amsterdam's vendetta against Bill the Butcher, but she wants to take him with her to San Francisco, where they "pull gold out of the river with their bare hands." She has been poor all her life, and, under the hand of Bill, she has survived. Now that Amsterdam has been raised as Bill's protoge, she wants to take him away from the nonsensical fighting that is everyday life.
In 1863, when the Conscription Act was passed, every man had to register for the draft, or pay three hundred dollars to save his life. There is a scene of magnificent beauty where Irish immigrants come off the boat into America, enlist in the Army, get into uniform, are shipped right back onto a boat, which is returning with an endless sea of coffins filled with those who came over last week. Riots ensue, thousands upon thousands are killed, and Scorsese makes an interesting point. The men of the Five Points are willing to fight for their country, but on their own terms. They fight an enemy with a face, and for their own reasons, not because a commanding officer tells them to.
What Scorsese has done here will likely be hailed as one of the great war movies, and rightly so. He has no illusions about war, and doesn't feed us with the glory of fighting for what you believe in. The only thing that war creates is dead bodies. The politicians in the picture complain of all the votes they're losing. Soldiers are recycled into coffins, rioters into a neverending line of candle light, and in the end, Scorsese says, "it'll be like we were never here." Here is one of the best pictures of the year.
Four stars, out of four.