The Gangs of New York

reviewed by Tom Daley

Martin Scorsese’s forever in the making project Gangs of New York has finally come to being. He brings it the screen with a certain "if you don’t know this film you don’t belong in this theatre" attitude. Scorsese saves the opening title credits for the end of the picture. It doesn’t matter. The movie’s die is cast in the opening minutes. The screen is filled with a close-up of a straight razor cutting the face of its user. That image, blood on steel, is one that is repeated for the remainder of the movie. We learn that the man shaving is Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson) and the boy watching is his son Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio). Priest is preparing for a battle to the death with William Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis). Vallon and Cutting are the leaders of the Dead Rabbits and the Nativists, the two gangs vying for control of the Five Points section of New York. To the sound of a 19^th century battle hymn, the two Vallons head through the old brewery building to the fateful battle. The Dead Rabbits and the Nativists engage in battle that sees Cutting, a.k.a. Bob the Butcher, kill Priest Vallon with Amsterdam looking on in horror. Priest’s death at Cutting’s hands sets the stage for the story. Sixteen years later, in 1863, Amsterdam Vallon returns to the Five Points to seek his revenge on Cutting as the Irish immigrants try to wrest control of the Five Point from the Nativists.

A Leonardo DiCaprio movie wouldn’t be a movie without a love interest, and Cameron Diaz plays that part. Her acting range is demonstrated no better than by the image of her leather clad derrière in the theatre lobby that is the teaser billboard for next summer’s Charlie’s Angels sequel. Not many actresses can go from action movie star to period piece drama, but Diaz does it well. As the pickpocket extraordinaire Jenny Everdeane, she stands out from the denizens of the Five Points to both the audience and to Vallon. Jenny is clearly the most attractive woman in the Five Points and you have to wonder how long the make-up artists worked to get Diaz’s hair tousled to 19^th century perfection. Nonetheless, Diaz delivers her lines with the snappiness required for Jenny to be a worthwhile foil for Vallon.

Diaz’s performance notwithstanding, this is a movie about two men. DiCaprio plays his role up to expectations, but Day-Lewis is the star. For Cutting to survive the Five Points for over sixteen years, he needs to be not just clever, but larger than life imposing. Day-Lewis plays the role with mafia boss bravado. He delivers his lines with the same intonations as Robert De Niro in Scorsese’s Goodfellas. It’s hard to look imposing as a man with a handle bar mustache wearing plaid pants, but the scene when a bloodied Cutting is towering over Vallon, Day-Lewis looks positively demonic.

In the end, what makes this movie so good is that Martin Scorsese loves making movies, not just telling stories, and it comes through here. The Five Points that he creates is larger than the any of the characters in this film. New York is the city that never sleeps and that maxim is just as true in the 19^th century. Scorsese creates a New York that makes your skin crawl. The dark interiors make it seem like you truly are in the underworld. The exteriors of the buildings around the Five Points look like the Old West without any good guys. The scenes of Irish immigrants coming into the city by the boatload looking for a better life only to go off to fight for the union states to likely come back to the same pier in a pine box capture the hopeless plight of those immigrants. The movie captures the passion of the northern states hatred of Lincoln and the Civil War effort with a resonance that has been forgotten. But Scorsese also peppers the movie with some lighthearted moments. The best is the war council scene between Vallon and Cutting when they are selecting the weapons for the final fight. It is homage to the original gangs of New York film, West Side Story, as the dialogues pacing matches perfectly the original exchange between the Jets and the Sharks at Doc’s soda shop. Perhaps Scorsese is looking to match that film’s Best Picture Academy Award. Gangs of New York isn’t the best movie of the year, but it is three hours of great filmmaking.