Amsterdam & Bill Butcher were fighting each other whilst I was fighting to stay awake

Rating: 3/10 (6 February 2015)

I think I counted that there were about 4 moments in this film that I would class as being mildly exciting. That's 4 exciting moments in a film that runs for 160 minutes - no wonder I struggled making it to the end.
In Gangs of New York, Amsterdam's father Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson) is killed during a fight by Bill The Butchers (Daniel Day-Lewis) during a gang related fight. The film then skips on 16 years and Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo Di Caprio)is back in New York and befriends Bill The Butcher with the intention of killing Bill The Butcher for killing his father - in essence it's a revenge film.
What I couldn't understand was why the writers chose for Amsterdam to befriend Bill The Butcher and wait for an opportunity to kill him. What was the point? Why not just play it as a straight revenge film? Bill The Butcher didn't know who Amsterdam was when he returned because Amsterdam was only a child when he last saw him therefore Amsterdam always had the upper hand over Bill. I would have forgiven this glaring lapse in logic if the film would have at least been entertaining, suspenseful or interesting, but it isn't. It's as dull as dishwater quite frankly.
Amsterdam ends up romantically linked with Jenny (Cameron Diaz) which was not only ludicrous, but also downright boring. In fact, I didn't give a hoot about any of the characters and I could feel my interest waning the further the film plodded along.
Scorsese is a master craftsman when it comes to directing and it shows here, but if I'm being cynical one could argue that maybe it's too good. There are long panning and tracking shots which are great to look at, but a lot of these shots and many of the scenes went on for too long and seem to add to the film's already elongated running time.
Picking up on more trivial aspects, I thought Leonardo Di Caprio's attempt at an Irish accent was awful (which may explain why most of the time he didn't even bother trying to speak in an Irish accent). Cameron Diaz was guilty of forgetting that her character was meant to be Irish at times, but her Irish accent was at least reasonably good when she remembered to use it. I also thought, to her credit, that she gave a much better performance than I was expecting - even though her character wasn't particularly well-written.
One thing that is great about this film is Day-Lewis; Day-Lewis is a bit of a perfectionist and takes his acting very seriously. He's well-known for immersing himself into a character and the work and time that he puts into doing this is clearly evident. I noted in the Trivia section that he talked in a New York accent throughout the entire time during the film's production. It clearly shows as I never once believed that he wasn't a New York native, even though he is English. I haven't always appreciated all of Day-Lewis' films, but I've always had the utmost respect for him as an actor.
Even the film's climax is rather predictable (although it did at least add a bit of much needed excitement). My thoughts on this when it finished was that it was an over-long, bloated, unconvincing bore of a film where the only good thing about it was Daniel Day-Lewis.