Film Review: Gangs of New York (2002)

Martin Scorsese is the greatest director of contemporary American cinema. Part of his greatness, however, reflects in his Hollywood peers’ reluctance to recognise it, with their constant Oscar snubbing being as spectacular as in the case of Steven Spielberg before Schindler’s List. Scorsese has spent years trying very hard to make a film that would crown his career with the most prestigious of all American film awards. That film, which is supposed to be his magnum opus and do for him what The Godfather did for Francis Ford Coppola, was 2002 period epic drama Gangs of New York.

The film is based on The Gangs of New York, 1928 non-fiction book by Herbert Asbury, which had chronicled organised crime in New York City during 19th Century. The plot begins in 1846 when many immigrants, mostly Irish, who had came to America in order to start new life, remained stuck in the city and forced to survive in slums, often in worse living conditions than black slaves in South. For the Irish things are even worse because of their Catholic faith, which makes them favourite targets of thugs from Protestant majority that consider “subversive Papist newcomers” irreconcilable with American democracy. The Irish, in order to resist the violence, form their own gangs like “Dead Rabbits”, which is led by “Priest” Valon (played by Liam Neeson). Conflict between them and nativist Protestant gang led by William “Bill the Butcher” Cuttling (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) over control of Five Points neighbourhood escalate into spectacular street fight during which “Dead Rabbits” would lose and Bill would kill Valon and leave his young son orphaned. Seventeen years later Valon’s son Amsterdam (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) returns from orphanage into New York City, determined to avenge father’s death. In the meantime, Bill became master of city’s streets and chief ally of corrupt Democrat politician William “the Boss” Tweed (played by Jim Broadbent). Amsterdam plans to kill Bill by joining his organisation and winning his trust, which would allow opportunity to strike. In the meantime, he becomes attracted to beautiful female pickpocket Jenny Everdeane (played by Cameron Diaz). It all coincides with Civil War and US Congress passing draft laws that target mostly impoverished citizens, mainly the Irish, and that further escalates simmering conflict between them and Protestants.

Scorsese has reached fame with Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, gritty urban drama that had depicted dark underbelly of contemporary America. Decades later, with Age of Innocence, he has shown that he could have as easily dealt with something quite opposite – period dramas about upper class milieu. Gangs of New York represents something in between, although it was project that Scorsese has been trying to make for a very long time. Growing up in Little Italy neighbourhood in Manhattan, young Scorsese had been fascinated with the buildings, artefacts and other traces of immigrants, mostly Irish, that had preceded his Italian ancestors in settling the city. His obsession was further enhanced after reading Asbury’s book and in 1979 he acquired film rights to it. The adaptation, however, had to wait for decades. Any attempt to properly reconstruct New York City in mid 19th Century, place that had changed beyond recognition in more than century, required tens millions of dollars of budget most studios were quite unwilling to give, especially after cataclysmic fiasco of similarly themed Heaven’s Gate. Scorsese has finally succeeded into talking Miramax into financing project, but its head Harvey Weinstein did it only under condition that the film must be under three hours long, much less than four or five hour version Scorsese had originally envisioned.

At first glance, it seems that such compromise was justified. Scorsese got almost 100 million US$ and put them to good use in Rome’s famous Cinecitta studios, where old New York City was reconstructed with one of the largest, most expensive and most spectacular sets in history of cinema. Scorsese was aided by famous production designer Dante Ferretti and small army of costume designers, historians, musicians and martial arts experts who had tried to make such reconstruction as accurate as possible. The result is quite impressive naturalistic depiction of underbelly of future global metropolis and place where America shows its dark side – as a place of poverty, crime, corruption and extreme violence, something very little to do with noble ideals of freedom and democracy.

Unfortunately, all those impressive images are supposed to be held together with something Gangs of New York lacks – coherent plot. What goes for it is hackneyed cliched story about revenge, with its outcome, due to main characters being played by popular and good looking Leonardo DiCaprio, being quite easy to guess. It is also easy to guess that the film would contain equally cliched romantic subplot due to presence of Cameron Diaz. But even worse is impression that Gangs of New York was butchered in editing room, resulting in characterisation being inconsistent and confusing to the audience. Amsterdam is in one moment cynic that falls Bible in the water, and in another moment Catholic fanatic. In another scene he is just a petty street thief only to become Bill’s top lieutenant in the next. When Bill has opportunity to kill Amsterdam, he doesn’t use and, even after promising that he would cut Amsterdam’s face with the knife, he leaves it untouched, probably in order to spare the trauma for DiCaprio’s female fans. Bad editing is also present in the final and rather un-cathartic showdown betewen Amsterdam and Bill, which occurs simultaneously with much more spectacular and interesting New York City draft riots of July 1863.

Although Scorses’s general intention was to show some of lesser known and embarrassing chapter of US history which had been swept under carpet, Gangs of New York, like so many Hollywood films, at times too cavalier approach towards historical accuracy. In the conflict between Catholic immirgant and nativist Protestants., Scorsese, partly because his own Catholic background, takes the side of the former and even takes great pains to portray them as some sort of beacon for multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-racial democracy and all noble “politically correct” ideals modern West takes for granted. So, “Dead Rabbits” have black members in their ranks, which is for 1860s as credible as prominent Jews being members of German brownshirts in 1930s. The Irish, which took part in infamous 1863 riots, directed their anger mainly against blacks, seeing them as cause of devastating war and competition for cheap labour. Scorsese, who took great pains to reconstruct many other period details, completely ignores these facts, like US Army firing Gatling guns at people in the streets in order to suppress the riots.

Despite its obvious imperfection, Gangs of New York should be recommended for its great effort in reconstructing past and Daniel Day-Lewis delivering another great performance as Butcher Bill. Scorsese, despite having Weinstein’s vote-grabbing machine behind him, had another spectacular failure in his attempt to win Oscars and had to wait to get as consolation prize for Departed four years later.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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