Gangs of New York (2002)
Martin Scorsese's pretentiously
epic "Gangs of New York" opens with a brutal and detestably
gory street fight sequence and proceeds to wallow
in the muck and the blood that results for three hours
thereafter. Truly Scorsese has crafted what may very
well be the most accurate pictures of exactly what
it was like to exist in New York in 1846. Truly he
has glorious actors working for him (albeit not actresses).
And truly he will delight his fanatical followers.
What he doesn't have here is a movie. There's no characters.
No story. Nothing. This is just three hours of disgusting
images that suggest America was born from violence
rather than from something we with brains and intellect
like to call The Constitution. Despicable.
I mean, really, this is what Scorsese
is notorious for isn't it? From his first short film
he's done little more than drench celluloid in fake
blood and glorify the most repulsive human garbage
to ever exist. His characters here, if you can call
them that, are little more than his Vegas hoods transported
back into the past to crack skulls and pull off hits.
There's nothing else going on here. I defy anyone
to explain any "thug's" motivation here. They have
none. Scorsese gives them none. They are simply greedy,
despicable thugs. Nothing more.
Seduced by the "master's" notoriety,
Leonardo Dicaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis and Cameron Diaz
gladly wallow in the blood and guts. Dicaprio and
DDL do adequate jobs of it all, even though they both
reduce the characters down to the essentials (since
there is nothing else to do with them). But poor Diaz
is so far out of her league here it is laughable.
Diaz should never be in a period piece. She looks
ridiculous. Every time she comes on the screen it's
as if someone drove a Lamborghini into the supposed
1850's set. We never once separate the actress from
her facade. She never becomes a character. We never
believe her. She is far out of place. And she has
zero chemistry with Dicaprio. It's all so laughable.
It's sad really that this film has
such a lousy script. You can't make heads or tales
out of what is going on and Dicaprio's character's
motivations are all over the place. It gets downright
stupid at times. It is obviously a script by committee
rather than some sort of solid piece of writing. And
it's sad too because the themes here and the relevance
of the themes to the history of America are extraordinary.
This could have truly been an epic film with amazing
implications about the history of American and our
violent past. There are so many interesting things
that could be done here but Scorsese isn't interested
in telling a story or making points about America's
violent history. He's just interested in violence.
Period. The gore here becomes masturbatory and gratuitous
from the first frame. It's such a sad and wasted opportunity.
If you're a Scorsese fan, you stopped
reading two paragraphs ago. If, for some reason, you're
not a Scorsese fan, this film is not for you. There's
no there there. This is a vapid, masturbatory, bloody,
pretentious, bloated piece of dung. When will Scorsese
retire and stop turning cinema into a glorification
of the most despicable and foul people and stories?
This isn't a film; it's celluloid smeared viciously
and purposefully with blood and feces.
Note:
Also with Jim Broadbent, Henry Thomas,
John C. Reilly, Brendan Gleeson, and Liam Neeson.
Scorsese has a cameo.
Script by Jay Cocks, Steve Zaillian
and Kenneth Lonergan.
Score by Howard Shore. The film
is so pretentious that it ends with a song by Bono
and U2.
Filmed in Italy with a final budget
of 97 million.
When Scorsese first attempted to
get the film financed in the late 70's (he took out
a two-page ad about it in 1977), the failure of "Heaven's
Gate" caused the studios to abort the production.
At one time Scorsese wanted to make the film with
The Clash as the stars. He later used them in "The
King of Comedy" in a cameo.
It is said that Robert Deniro or
Willem Dafoe was going to play the Day-Lewis role
at one point.
A 17 minute promotion clip of the
film was played at Cannes in 2002.
Nominated for a few Golden Globe
awards.
The film opened just 5 days prior
to another Dicaprio blockbuster, Steven Spielberg's
"Catch Me If You Can."
Viewed in Pflugerville in December
2002.
