Great movie

Rating: 9/10 (7 March 2009)

I liked this movie enough to give a 9. Only flaw worthy of mentioning is probably DiCaprio wasn't really convincing either as a gang leader or a cunning revenge-seeker. Saw some people commenting that Daniel Day-Lewis's acting was over the top but I can't disagree more. I loved his character and I have seen people who go about being quite as animated or theatrical in real life. He is a very believable and scary gangster.
And if people think the violence is unrealistic, they just have been too lucky not to see the worse side of human nature. Coming from a third world country, I was surprised to see how much some things shown in this movie as happened in NY some 200 years ago looks familiar - e.g. politicians using thugs for their benefit, gangs fighting each other - may be not in 100s and not using knives and axes these days, but still there are things called gang wars out there. And yeah, police doesn't turn up in the middle of a real gang war. This movie piqued my interest enough to read about the real stories behind the movie and found out it's fairly accurate. Guess it's a stage civilisation has to go through from time to time. Even London was a slum a few hundred years ago wasn't it?
Gangs of New York is a movie that is utterly believable and shows some interesting sides of human nature if you are prepared to see it.