Frankengangs!

Rating: 6/10 (24 December 2002)

No argument! Martin Scorsese is a wonderful filmmaker, film historian, and a most likable fellow. I like him. I can't help it. Yet, I do not like most of his films. This one is debatably an exception, perhaps saved by inch-fractions primarily by the spellbinding, remorselessly superb acting chops of Daniel Day-Lewis. Curiously he is an Irish actor from Ireland playing an Irish immigrant-hating American of English ancestry, William Cutting, who in real life was no longer living during the final climactic scenes of this film. The shrugs do not end there. Leonardo DiCaprio (now, thankfully, finally, a grown man playing one) plays an Irish American (who struggles with his Irish accent throughout the film).
The film ends with the NYC Draft Riots of 1863. Without drawing up a long list of historical inconsistencies and equivocations, as one example, famed Tribune Editor, Horace Greeley, who was only 52 at the time of these riots, is depicted as a wizened, old man in a long, white beard. In fact, he was only 61 when he died nine years later. Although the chances are that Greeley was brought into the story for his abolitionist views this remains unclear in this release cut of the film.
Generally, this story of the search for vengeance by a boy who sees his father killed during a gang riot never weaves into a full, coherent scenario. The climactic backdrop of the New York City draft riots, in truth were fomented primarily by outraged laborers of mixed nationalities, e.g. of both Irish and German descent, against the importation of poorly paid blacks. These riots that were also given support by the Lincoln hating Tammany Hall-corrupt Democratic Party of the city of that time are not accurately presented here nor clearly melded into the story despite the fast intercuts of flyers and posters of the period. The films' depictions of US Navy Frigates (perhaps on the East River?) firing cannons into Manhattan is news to me, a born New Yorker who has lifelong followed New York history. Toward the end GANGS feels just like what it is a contrivance that upon departing leaves in its wake an empty feeling.
The production values, design, ambiance and atmosphere are handsome. However this film, claimed by some overwrought hype writers, as the "Birth of New York" is better described as myopic mayhem. If relentless brutality is your cup of tea, try it. Who knows? You might like it.