Great film, but not one of Scorsese's best.

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2003)

Before I begin my review, I would like to say congratulations Martin Scorcese for adding yet another great film to your long career. This is the kind of film that doesn't hold anything back; the violence, the lifestyles these characters live, and like always Mr. Scorsese leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. What I mean by "bad taste" is the sinful images that this films evokes. The killing, the prostitution, the revenge are all sinful things.
THE PLOT
The film starts in 1846 and ends in 1863 with the draft riots. The setting is New York's five points, the most violent part of the world at the time. The story is risen out of the conflicts between the whit Anglo-Saxon "natives" and the Irish immigrants coming into the five points. One boy needs to avenge the death of his father.
THE ACTORS
Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the greatest natural actors that I've seen since Michael Keaton. Natural acting is getting into character but at the same time still being yourself; in other words you're infusing your own personality with the character your assigned to portray in the film.
Gary Cooper was a natural and so was Spencer Tracy. Leo's performance in this film is far better than "Titanic." In "Gangs of New York" Leo shows an unending rage that the audience has never seen before, in "Titanic" he's just a pretty boy. One of the problems with Leo's performance is that his accent comes and goes through out the film, just as Mel Gibson's accent did during "Braveheart." Mel wasn't nominated for best actor in "Braveheart" so I don't think Leo will get nominated for this movie for some of the same reasons, one being accent authenticity. However, I will expect a nomination for him in `Catch Me If You Can.'
Daniel Day-Lewis's gives his best performance since "My Left Foot." Daniel has always shown the dark of every character that he's played and he incorporates some kindness and humanity as well in his performances.
I expect an Oscar win for Daniel but Dennis Quaid presents immense competition in his performance in "Far From Heaven.' Cameron Diaz has been giving terrible performances since "Any Given Sunday" but with "Gangs Of New York" she's proved her dramatic ability is still intact and is once again one of my favorite dramatic actresses.

THE PROBLEMS
One of the problems with this film is the first battle scene. Every time Daniel Day-Lewis knifed someone there was no blood present. That's when I understood what Roger Ebert was talking about when he said, "Scorsese didn't put all of his heart into this film." I now know what he's talking about because you can tell Martin was not into this story because of his directing. Usually Scorsese tells the story and keeps the audience interested with his directing. His directing carries all of his films, but in this film he lets the actors carry the film and not his directing. That's not Scorcese's style but that is Spielberg's style, Spielberg puts the camera or trails the camera with the actor and just lets them act; no fancy editing and barely any music. Spielberg's directing style is similar to David Lean's style in many ways. Scorsese is a dynamic director. He puts the camera between the actors; he uses music as he manipulates the scene constantly as he goes.... crazy with the camera. Sometimes he adds various types of lighting to his scenes to describe them, and he always uses slow motion via editing and camera work to go from actor to actor. His work is not static. In some films he uses a single tone to bring you into the scene. In "Gangs of New York" he forgot why he's famous in the first place. He forgot why people love him as a director and as an artist. In "Kundun" he changed his style purposely for the film and it was evident because he directs "Kundun" the way David Lean would direct "Kundun" using a similar style, and I expected that. I believe he directed "Kunden" the way he visualized it and the film worked. I felt no emotion when he is directing of "Gangs of New York', because the emotion for the entirety of the film is carried by the actors. I was disappointed this by this movie for those reason I listed. My message to Scorsese is stick to what you know best and what you do best.... better than any other director. Scorsese did remember the fireworks. In every film of Scorsese there are fireworks.
I may be sounding negative about this very good film but I liked it, so I rate "Gangs of New York" a 9 out of 10.