Review – Gangs of New York

If only Martin Scorcese had done a better job making up his mind what he wanted out of this movie, he might have done a better job getting it. In part it’s a historical drama with a distinct Luc Sante flavor. In part it’s a largely unsuccessful Leonardo DiCaprio / Cameron Diaz romance, and in part it’s just a great big overblown action movie. It might have worked as any one of the three (well, maybe not the romance), but crammed together the elements just get in one another’s way. And given the amount of space available to fit everything in, the conflict took some doing. Daniel Day Lewis doesn’t help matters much, using a genuinely dreadful Marlon Brando impression to ham it up as the villain. And then there’s DiCaprio as the hero in a revenge plot so silly they should have called his character Inigo Montoya. Some of the art direction is sort of interesting, but even that more often than not ends up undone by the ham-handed direction, the scenery falling victim to the scenery-chewing. The Civil War era history of the Five Points had more than a little potential, but except in rare moments the production doesn’t live up to the promise. Mildly amusing