GANGS OF NEW YORK (director: Martin Scorsese; screenwriters: Jay Cocks/Steven Zaillian/Kenneth Lonergan/story by Mr. Cocks; cinematographer: Michael Ballhaus; editor: Thelma Schoonmaker; music: Howard Shore; cast: Leonardo DiCaprio (Amsterdam Vallon), Daniel Day-Lewis (Bill the Butcher), Cameron Diaz (Jenny Everdeane), Liam Neeson (Priest Vallon), Jim Broadbent (Boss Tweed), John C. Reilly (Happy Jack), Henry Thomas (Johnny Sirocco), Brendan Gleeson (Monk McGinn), Gary Lewis (Charles McGloin); Runtime: 168; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Alberto Grimaldi/Harvey Weinstein; Miramax; 2002)
"It's a glorious spectacle like those D.W. Griffith made in the early days of silent film."
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Martin Scorsese's absorbing tale of urban crime in mid-19th-century New York City and the struggle of the immigrant rabble to fit into the city is a 'big beast' of a film that he has made into his own personal epic. It's ambitious beyond what it can deliver, but despite its many flaws it grabs hold of one and won't let go. It's dark and bloody and mind-blowing in a way that makes one listen to a history lesson that seems more like fantasy than fact, but one that has enough facts in it to make one feel numb with excitement and wonder if things could have really been so dark and if violence is so necessary as a vehicle for change. It's a glorious spectacle like those D.W. Griffith made in the early days of silent film -- it's of blood feuds and political corruption, and of bigotry and of ethnic cleansing that unfolds in a teeming city of tenements that looks like a high-rise pig sty and of a city that is finally enveloped in an orange ball of fire during draft riots in 1863; and, then in a final shot from a Brooklyn graveyard taken of the modern NYC skyline, it implies that out of those ashes from the draft riots the city was born. This emerges as the main point of an entertaining lesson that appeals to the masses and their penchant for violence, as it states that maybe the price for freedom calls for a willingness to give your life for it.
The film loses itself in too many characters who say a couple of lines only to vanish without another word said about them and corpses we can't really mourn because we never got to know them long enough and twisty subplots that lead down paths that go nowhere; and, it disappoints in that its main storyline about a murder and revenge tale is all too familiar and its ring is too hollow. The usually fastidious Scorsese lost control of this unwieldly film either through his own doing or as someone held a knife to his throat (like maybe producer Harvey Weinstein) and forced him to say "uncle." But, somehow he makes up for that with all the passion he poured into filming it and this goes without the characters themselves being passionate (at least, it was hard for this viewer to care about a single character in this film). The filmmaker might fail his characters but he makes each scene into a matter of life or death. His bloody canvas paints history as a living force of change, and this fascinating blood curdling look into the New York City that emerged from a chaotic time period of mass Irish immigration into America's most important city is what keeps one from balking at all the film's missteps. It ultimately redeems itself in the intangible reasons it wins you over to its side, as it relentlessly hammers home the point how messy America's democracy really is and how high the price was to be paid for those who came here expecting America to be a ready-made paradise as they soon learn they would have to slay the dragon in order to survive. The film also reached out in showing how seething with tribal gang warfare the streets of New York were--something that comes to life in this film in such a captivating way that a university text book with the same lesson couldn't possibly do it the same justice. There's also a staggering performance by its lead villain Daniel Day-Lewis, whose turgid vernacular comes in a heavy Noo Yawkese accent. His performance is reason enough for seeing the film. While one can also point to the best sets money can buy, where one can easily see how the $100-million budget was used purposefully as Lower Manhattan's Five Points never looked more splendidly seedy and the city became an astounding sight as it looked like a stomping ground for a medieval battle of knives, razors, axes, clubs, and meat cleavers fought between the lords and the peasants.
The long overdue film comes with its own story of delay, as it was perhaps as long ago as 25 years that Scorsese was prepared to shoot the film. He was inspired by the 1928 book by Herbert Asbury entitled "Gangs of New York." All looked good for the project when Miramax and Harvey Weinstein fronted the dough for a film many in Hollywood brushed aside as folly. But the price that came with his financial support was a certain loss of artistic freedom and a cutting down of the film into merely 168 minutes (this story could have gone on for four hours if it is was to be completely told, as I felt in this version the supporting characters were not enlarged enough). There's also the untold story about a year's delay until the film finally opens in December of 2002, as something must have been going on between filmmaker and producer. One can only wonder at what was left on the cutting room floor.
The set for Paradise Square on the Five Points where the battles were lodged, was actually shot in Rome's spacious Cinecittá studio where great pains and expenses were taken to make it all look authentic. No matter what you may think of the film, there's no arguing at how good it looks.
The story opens in 1846 and an Irish priest named Vallon (Neeson) and his young son come out of their church catacomb together as the priest prepares his Roman Catholic Irish gang called the Dead Rabbits to do street battle with Bill "the Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his Protestant "Native Americans" for control of the Five Points. The Butcher kills the priest and 16 years later his son now called Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio) emerges from 16 years in the Hellgate House of Reform, an orphanage, and creeps into the good graces of "Bill the Butcher" through his activities with his former mates who are in an Irish gang that does petty crimes and work for the Butcher. Amsterdam is bent on revenge for his father's murder and plots for the day he can kill the Butcher, and he also has an eye out for making a fortune for himself. He must have changed so much in appearance because of his thin Van Dyke that he goes unrecognized by former gang members of his father's--the strongarm for the Butcher Charles McGloin (Gary Lewis) and the corrupt police constable Happy Jack (John C. Reilly), who have sold-out to the Butcher like everyone else trying to earn a dishonest living. The only one who recognizes him is his childhood pal Johnny Sirocco (Henry Thomas), a small time criminal, and the mercenary thug barber Monk McGinn (Gleeson), who keeps the secret to himself and when he's sure that Amsterdam could be trusted gives him the razor with his father's blood from his cheek still on it that the Priest in a battle-ritual cut himself with and implored his son to never forget what it means, as he says: "The blood stays on the blade. One day you'll understand."
Politically New York is ruled by the heartless and corrupt Tammany Hall "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent), who is portrayed as a weasel who buys votes, commits graft and extortion, and will resort to do anything to have power. His enforcer is Bill the Butcher in an alliance made out of convenience. The butcher's hand is in everything criminal in the Five Points, as he's always menacing on the screen even when he's only sharpening his knives for some butchering. He's an awe inspiring presence in his fearsome mustache he's in the habit of twirling and in his skyscraper stovepipe hat that makes him seem larger than life. The Butcher is a swaggering brute, a sadist, a bigoted Know Nothing-a racist and who in his black heart hates not only the Irish but all foreigners and the Union itself. He blindly adopts Amsterdam as his surrogate son because he sees something in him that reminds him of himself, and all the while Amsterdam becomes part of his whoring inner circle there's hanging a picture of the Priest in his headquarters tavern butcher shop. In a sentimental moment the Butcher goes on slobbering about fear is what controls people and his respect for Priest Vallon: "The only man I ever killed worth remembering." In a Chinese restaurant he and his gang celebrate the battle of 1846 as a glorious holiday, and it is during this very celebration that Amsterdam plans his revenge.
The film's middle-part has a bustling Five Points filled with brothels in Chinese restaurants; brawls between competing fire departments who allow buildings on fire to be looted; an Uncle Tom's Cabin play that is performed at a local settlement house, while the actor playing President Lincoln is suspended from the ceiling so he can be booed and pelted with fruit; there are parades for or against the Civil War; torch-lit political rallies; public hangings; pickpockets freely working the streets; unregulated bare-knuckle fights; and, the nativists who gather to stone Irish immigrants as they arrive off the boats in the East River, while at the same time Tammany Hall instantly registers them to vote and the Union Army recruits them on the spot. It's an ugly picture painted of the city, where everyone is tarnished with one brush stroke. There's not one wholesome character in the film. Horace Greeley and his Dutch Protestant magnates who run the city financially are depicted as either fools or bigots or thrill seekers who visit the Five Points only to show their moral superiority as they look down on the rabble. The Roman Catholic Church is depicted as politically motivated and corrupt. The city stinks so much, one can even smell its rotten odor in the theater as if some gimmicky "smell o'rama" was somehow intalled in the theater.
To fill in time until the inevitable showdown between the rivals, a love interest for Amsterdam is brought into the story through the insolent pickpocket and sometime prostitute and daring house booster character played by Cameron Diaz, Jenny Everdeane. She's a feisty beauty who attracts his eye but also disappoints him that Bill the Butcher also had her and that she's his protégé. Their romance took too long in telling and other than showing them bonding as they showed off their scars from childhood, there was little one can say about their relationship other than it brought only more length to a film that needed to use its time more wisely. Women are all but ignored in the city as they are either whores or not part of the story, and their important role in the struggle is never gotten to. Though the film was never dull as Scorsese has a way of making the most out of throwaway shots of turbulent street scenes, there could have been a more pointed look directed at what all the violence meant and less of a glorification of the violence.
The last section of the movie is set during the 1863 draft riots, and here the personal, quasi-oedipal revenge story and the wider historical meanings fuse together, and the film becomes like a battle cry for the struggle for freedom fought in the streets--an end to the old tribal ways and a beginning to modern society based on democracy. As Amsterdam says after the draft riots: "Our great city was born in blood and tribulation." The film is strongest in its unyielding picture it depicts of the violence that ensues. But that's also its weakest point, as it's hard to take from that just exactly what Scorsese means--as he can't make this theme compelling or put a human face on it to give it soul or go beyond the ambitious nature of the film that shows how violent a country America is. The message for how the city was forged out of this necessity for violence seems forced, as if he's shoving it down the viewer's throat without any alternative scenario. Even as Scorsese turns his sympathies to the exploited poor who are drafted into the Union Army while Boss Tweed's rich associates have the $300 necessary to buy their way out of the draft and he shows how violent and corrupt these immigrants can also be, he still never gets at what freedom means and why it's worth dying for--if that is what he truly believes. This four day riot that nearly burned down the entire city was one of America's darkest episodes, as it pitted the lower-class citizens of Manhattan against the government's first draft law. In their violent rebellion the city gangs were massacred indiscriminately without warning by the military they were intended to join, while blacks were massacred in the same manner by the mob. This scene is filled with bloodletting emotions, so much so that it brings this whole messy story together as a mythic example of the toil it takes to gain freedom. "Gang's" is a film that will long be remembered for its violence and for the opportunities it missed to speak to those who believe the way to keep freedom alive is through a more civil approach to life and not through following someone as tortured and unreliable as Amsterdam and his multiracial ragtag army of self-seekers. There's no room in Scorsese's film for anyone with even a hint of pacifism in their veins, and that's just too bad. But for its pure visual shots and its reflections on history and what it means now, it's a film to be cherished and much discussed.
REVIEWED ON 1/5/2003 GRADE: A -
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
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