Length + Violence = Boredom

Rating: 5/10 (8 September 2017)

What ruined this for me? Length + Violence. The script was poor and above all 'explanatory' - always telling us about the gangs, the Five Points, the social unrest, the Civil War and the draft, Boss Tweed etc. etc. The ultimate act of imagination would have been to create real 3-dimensional human beings and give them small, human poignant moments. After awhile we are aware that trying to be 'real' it is all unbelievable, unreal. Perhaps it was the filming on the giant indoor sets at Rome's Cinecitta studios that give the film its over-stylized and unconvincing 'look'.
With grandiose sets come grandiose set-pieces. Violent set pieces. LOTS of them. Eventually they all run together into one noisy, gory fizzle. I enjoyed Daniel Day-Lewis more as a refined sissy in Room With A View than I did here. Yes, the man can act, but this is a one note performance.