I Left the Theatre

Rating: Null/10 (27 December 2002)

To begin, let me say I'm a tremendous fan of Mr. Scorcese's work, and personally consider him one of the best directors of all directors. However, when reviewing Gangs, one must forget he directed it, and look at it not as HIS WORK, but as a movie of its own. We can't be yes-men just because he's a great auteur.
Yes, you read my title correctly. I and two fellow film-buff friends left this movie a little after halfway through. Looking at our watches, we decided we couldn't stand another hour and twenty minutes of this film.
The film is overly graphic when it doesn't need to be, and seems to abandon its strong goals to tell a father-son story to be hip and edgy. Scorcese has always been a little edgy, and I think producer Weinstein may have had some say in the MTV-esqe cutting of this, a period drama(?). Toward the beginning, there's a crucial battle scene between the two warring "tribes" of an unruly section of New York. In this fight, the lens is splattered with blood, the carpeted snow can be seen curling up, and at times, people are cut without bleeding. Despite these mistakes, the battle is simply needlessly graphic, and almost campy. During one moment in which a long-nailed shrewish woman dives on a man, only to surface holding a bloody ear, my friend (unaware of Scorcese) said, "[This director's] a Peter Jackson wannabe," recalling Jackson's earlier work, Dead Alive (1992), the "goriest horror flick ever made". And while I admonished him for his ignorance, he had a point. The movie almost was a callback to Australian camp horror flicks.
And what about the pointless, graphic nudity? Being a 17-year-old male, I am definitely not adverse to naked women, but there's a time and a place in films. I turned to my friends during a particularly violent part and said sarcastically, "What this movie needs is some gratuitous nudity." Voila! Two minutes later, we were given a scene in a brothel, complete with dozens of topless women. During the scene, no dialog really suggested that this scene needed to take place in said location, but it did. Eh, it probably has a point I'm missing, right?
Overall, give me your criticisms and your flak. After all, I only saw about half of the movie. What do I know? Maybe this ultraviolent, bland, techno-music sporting period piece is worthy of some Oscar nods. But honestly, mixing together Eyes Wide Shut, A Clockwork Orange, and Braveheart with a revenge story seems kind of horrid.
FINAL RATING: 5 / 10
P.S. Scorcese references his student film "A Close Shave" with the opening shot of a man shaving. Thought this might interest some.