There are two kinds of movies audiences

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2004)

One wants to escape into a pretend world.
The other wants to see stories that make them think about theirs.
This movie is for the latter, the former will be sorely disappointed.
What looks from the onset like an unfortunate sequence of personal tragedies intended to tug on the sympathetic heartstrings of the former begins to wear thin and tedious about half way through as the all too obvious tragic outcome begins to roll downhill like a snowball gathering momentum.
But like a well constructed drama the denouement (thats the comedown after the climax where the meaning of the whole thing gets explained) hits first like a splash of cold water and then delivers the blow to the gut that left me reeling with recognition.
Not too many movies out of Hollywood lately have hit with that much moral force AFTER the ostensible climax. Usually you get some lamers making some clichÃ©s pretending to explain what needed no explanation because it was all too trite from the beginning. This one actually set off the old light bulb with the "Oh THAT'S what the storyteller was trying to get at with this story!"
This story tries to make similar moral judgments about ancient ingrained traditions of morality and justice in a microcosm of 3 families that Scorcese tried to portray in Gangs of New York on the grand scale.