An Army Of One - Daniel Day-Lewis

Rating: 8/10 (2 December 2004)

There are three reasons to watch Martin Scorcese's superlative Gangs Of New York:
Daniel.
Day.
Lewis.
Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, Al Pacino as Tony Montana, Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious, Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday and (to wax more 'modern') Hugh Jackman as Wolverine: iconic performances, one and all. Day-Lewis joins this pantheon of Actors who made acting choices that so transformed them into these particular icons that one is hard-pressed to see the 'star' beneath the role, even in retrospect.
Over the years, in his diversity of roles, Day-Lewis has insidiously placed himself amongst an elite few who have the right to actually term themselves 'actors' in this 'excrementitious' business which has degenerated into a forum for 'movie stars' (people with correct hair and au courant clothes designers).
Day-Lewis' role of Bill "The Butcher" Cutting personified the age-old saw that any villain's character is infinitely more interesting than any hero's character. This movie's hero being played by Leo The Fluff did not help any. The only way Fluff could ever be Hard is if he became Tim Roth. I concede that he is a very good actor  he's been doing it since he was 5, fer cryin' out loud  and he's honed his craft into that of a nascent Hollywood Legend (yet he has 'miles to go before he sleeps' on the laurels of a lip-smacking role or major award), but his insipid chick-flickable role in "Titanic" created that taste of sulfur in my mouth (and I'm guessing in the mouths of many others who might have marvelled at his turns in Basketball Diaries and This Boy's Life) to the point where he must almost martyr himself to engender any real 'likeability'. (Next summer: The Passion Of The Fluff.)
In a film stocked with excellent actors (Brendan Gleeson, Liam Neeson, Fluff, Jim Broadbent, Henry Thomas  and no, Cameron Diaz, is NOT one of those excellent actors, she's no better or worse than any one of a thousand women who could've filled that role), Day-Lewis molds a larger-than-history persona that illustrates the fact that Acting isn't really as easy as we all think it is. We are shown  by an absolute MASTER of the craft  how it's REALLY done: the force of will to forge this unique embodiment of power; abrasive, ambitious, ruthless, loyal; the choices of movement, accent, attire; each inflection, each flourish - Grand Gesture  not a smirk out of place, not a twirl of the mustache unintentional.
This movie's plot is almost an afterthought, as Day-Lewis' scene-stealing is so complete that we simply live for and unto each moment he graces us with his being... Set against the cyclorama of political machinations which defined early New York City's cultural eclecticism, an iron-fisted tyrant (Day-Lewis) must deal with crooked politicians (are there any other type?) threatening to usurp his power over a swathe of borough known as the Five Points, as well as deal with Leonardo DiCaprio (playing the son of a former civil leader whom Bill executed personally in a street battle - a cameo'd Liam Neeson), seeking vengeance for his father's death.
It was refreshing to learn that this movie's plot did not hinge on the ubiquitous device of Woman as the focal point. Even in movies that purport explosive grandeur, such as that displayed in Gangs, original storyline is so frequently sacrificed to the age-old struggle of acquiring a woman from a) another guy, b) another lifestyle, c) another tax bracket. Jenny (Cameron Diaz) intimates that she is Bill The Butcher's woman, yet after she sleeps with Fluff and we see that Bill is not in the least perturbed (but rather embraces an avuncular pleasure in knowing that his surrogate son has gotten some), Jenny loses all her importance to the tale; we, as jaded viewers, were grimacing and gearing up to see yet another testosterone-induced stag-battle over the meaningless mannequin of Woman  but it did not occur!  to the movie's great credit. It lent yet another dimension to the enigma, the legend, the inexplicable conundrum that was Bill The Butcher - that IS Daniel Day-Lewis.
Brings the bile to my throat to think that those talentless drogues on Melrose Place share the same earth as this genius; that while Day-Lewis has wrought such a world-shaking role as this, there still exists on this stinking planet Poison Ivy II and Friday The 13th Part VII, and ANY of the twenty incarnations of Police Academy dung heaps. In a world made better by Daniel Day-Lewis, should there be any reason to keep Steve Guttenberg alive?
Were it not for Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York would be merely a 'great' film, scourged from the engine-pit of misbegotten pseudo-history and sand-blasted onto the epic screen - but with Day-Lewis' incendiary performance of Bill Cutting, this film rightfully earns the mantle of 'classic'.
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