Gangs of New York

[IronParrot]

Someone on the Chicago thread asked me about my criticisms of this film, so I thought it deserved its own thread. I'm surprised there wasn't one already.

I saw Gangs of New York the day it opened, about three months ago. I haven't written a full review or anything, but I still remember most of what I thought of the movie on the whole.

I really wanted GONY to be good. I was expecting a grand period epic. I left the theatre thinking I'd just seen a pretty good film... pretty good, but not even remotely close to being great. There were a lot of very disappointing things about it that I couldn't make excuses for, and they stuck.

But let's talk about what I liked about the movie first. It was certainly very ambitious, and in terms of its production design, it was largely solid. The supporting cast sported a number of colourful characters - Liam Neeson was a real presence as Priest Vallon, for the five minutes he was in the film.

The highlight of the film for me was Daniel Day-Lewis' performance as Bill the Butcher. Bill was the best-written and best-acted character in the entire piece, and stole the show completely. He was the only character from whom I got a real sense of development and personality. His motives, beliefs, charisma and everything else down to how he taps that glass eye came together to make a superb screen villain on numerous counts. It's a pity the rest of the film didn't pull similar weight.

My criticisms:

Well first, a period epic needs a consistent period feel. While GONY achieved that somewhat in its brownish-whitish look of a snowy city built of wood, visuals are only part of the equation. GONY desperately needed a proper musical score, for instance. U2 over the final segue to the credits and the electronic undertones of the first fight are just totally out of place. The only semblance of a score I heard was an immemorable, themeless strings cue here and there that sounded like a Holst ripoff. Howard Shore is credited with the score, but he only wrote a single suite for the film which I hardly caught at all... maybe he mailed it in while working on his absolutely phenomenal score for The Two Towers.

Then there's the more pressing problem of character development. It's a big problem with Amsterdam and Jenny Everdeane, both of whom are supposed to be central characters, but hardly come off as characters at all.

I should make it very clear that I do not think Leonardo DiCaprio is a bad actor. I think he has a lot of talent that is often wasted by bad writing. If you want evidence that he is absolutely superb if he has witty dialogue to work with, watch Catch Me If You Can. His dialogue in GONY was not Titanic-bad (aside: I think Titanic was a beautiful film, just poorly written) but it was insignificant. It did nothing to present Amsterdam as a character. He is supposed to be the central character in the piece, yet he hardly has any presence. The film ended up being a very good movie about Bill the Butcher. Too bad that wasn't the intended point. The most character development I got out of Amsterdam came from the lines of, surprise surprise, Bill the Butcher.

Jenny Everdeane is such a stock character it gets a bit irritating. Don't get me started on the "romance" subplot... it's decoration. As a character, she is completely extraneous to the story other than in the capacity of Token Female. The stereotypical golden-hearted hooker could be a very good character when she is relevant (I'm thinking of L.A. Confidential); unfortunately, Jenny Everdeane is not. Cameron Diaz didn't have much material to work with in terms of lines or personality, either. The one really good scene with Jenny Everdeane is the knife-throwing one, and that was all because of, surprise surprise, Bill the Butcher.

Continued in my next post... this one's too long.

[IronParrot]

These are actually all relatively small problems compared to my biggest beef with the movie: the final act. Let's say the final third, give or take a minute here and a minute there. This is spoiler territory so I'll treat it as such:

So Bill killed Priest in the beginning of the film, and Priest was such a worthy and honourable rival that Bill has a lot of respect for him. Amsterdam just wants revenge, and initially sneaks his way around it all. Okay, that's a great thematic setup. It leads to an absolutely magnificent scene when Amsterdam's identity is revealed. After that, things really go downhill. First off, the whole Civil War bit near the end - namely, the fact that the final fight takes place amidst all the shelling and fire and smoke - serves no purpose. This distinctly reeks of a failed attempt at a profound thematic statement, one that didn't end up coming across. So there's a war going on, but the two of them keep fighting. Is there some kind of point being made here? Then Amsterdam kills Bill. Okay, so he avenged his father's death, after two and a half excruciating hours. Is this supposed to be original or something? Then he buries Bill next to his father, and then the World Trade Center pops up out of nowhere, and U2 starts blaring away. It's a mess of an ending, as if the highly ambitious script was written most of the way through and then somebody realized, "Wait, he still has to kill Bill." Don't get me started on Johnny Sirocco's betrayal thing. That made no sense.

Big lavish period sets don't automatically make a movie an epic. Any decent epic needs some sort of focus and direction, or sense of overall thematic rise, fall and resolution. Lawrence of Arabia, for all its vast desert battle sequences involving hundreds of extras on camels, was ultimately about an extraordinary man who struggles with his thirst for both fame and violence, and can't decide if he just wants to be ordinary again. Gone With The Wind focused on a woman who ignores the troubles of the world around her, out of her pursuit of an unrequited love. The Star Wars saga framed the entire struggle between the pure forms of good and evil on the three levels of politics, family and the human spirit. The Lord of the Rings... we have a whole forum dedicated to analysing it, so I won't bother going into the details.

In short, all of these epics are about something.

If somebody asked me what Gangs of New York was about, I wouldn't have much to say. I don't think it was intended to be a biopic of Bill the Butcher, but it was a pretty good one - and not much of anything else. I feel sorry for Martin Scorsese in a way, because he's an excellent director who finally got to finish his dream project, and probably didn't make it as good as he could have.

As far as the Oscars go, I think it was over-nominated to begin with. The one award it really deserved was Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis, but on the other hand, he was up against Adrien Brody, who was phenomenal in The Pianist and deserved the award just as fully.

As for the five films of 2002 I probably would have wanted nominated for Best Picture: a Second World War survival drama about a true artist whose life rests on the kindness of the people he meets; an exhiliratingly catchy musical about the exploitative nature of mass media; a critique of preemptive justice and invasion of privacy that doubled as one of the most intelligent sci-fi thrillers ever; a Prohibition-era revenge epic that focused on the relationship between father and son; and part two of the landmark film of our generation.

First one to name all five correctly gets brownie points or something.

[BeardofPants]

The Pianist, chicago, Minority Report, GoNY, TT. Do I get brownie points now?

[IronParrot]

No... you only hit four out of five.

[BeardofPants]

Not Minority Report, eh? How 'bout Solaris?

[IronParrot]

Whoops, that drops you to three out of five. Solaris was rather good, though... severely underrated for sure.

[azalea]

It's the Tom Hanks-Paul Newman one!! I jsut ssaw it and can't think of the name!

Road to Perdition!

[IronParrot]

Bing! This messes up the brownie point distribution a bit, but oh well. Standard deviation will take care of that.

Okay, now we can get back on topic...

[Millane]

ummm thanks Ironparrot was this all for me lucky lucky... ill try and respond to all of your points so here goes

Liam Neeson was a real presence as Priest Vallon, for the five minutes he was in the film.

he was awesome as the Preist if only we had of seen a bit more of him and his crosshammer.

everything else down to how he taps that glass eye came together to make a superb screen villain on numerous counts.

you might have interpretted differently but i didnt see Bill as a villain and i dont think he was supposed to be potrayed as one.

Howard Shore is credited with the score, but he only wrote a single suite for the film which I hardly caught at all... maybe he mailed it in while working on his absolutely phenomenal score for The Two Towers.

i think the Soundtrack was the highlight of the film... have you listened to it or just what was on the film? because i didnt really take much notice the first couple of times i went and saw it but then i sat down and listened to it and it was great... Howard Shores Brooklyn Height's 1,2,3 were great but there were other great songs aswell... i classed it up there with Fellowship and TTT for soundtrack...

Then there's the more pressing problem of character development. It's a big problem with Amsterdam and Jenny Everdeane, both of whom are supposed to be central characters, but hardly come off as characters at all.

now i agree with you about Jenny Everdeane she was one of the few let downs and i was dissapointed but Amsterdam was great and i thought there was enough character development needed for him... i think he wasnt as complex character as Bill and hence didnt need to overdo it...
i think in all that spoiler text is just the end fight... i liked it because if the civil war hadnt been included in the movie people would be complaining why it wasnt and not something you look over... the whole shelling was good because it changed the ending so that it wouldnt just be the same as the start and it left Bill and Amsterdam just to themselves...

As far as the Oscars go, I think it was over-nominated to begin with. The one award it really deserved was Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis,

dont get me started on the Oscars... do you honestly beleive Chicago deserved best picture
ohhh and Road to Perdition was awesome to

[Baby-K]

I finally got round to seeing GoNY. Was really looking forward to it (thanks to Millane & despite warnings from other people). Must say that I largely agree with IP - I was left with a distinct feeling of dissatisfaction.

Few points from my side - in stead of feeling like I've just watched a great period drama I walked out of there feeling as if my senses have been overwhelmed by a history lesson (of note).

The plot doesn't quite come together, I thought of it as an array of minor plots thrown together haphazardly (could also be because I was quite agitated & gave up on the story to start watching the other people in the cinema)

Liam Neeson should have stayed longer & his character deserved more development as a rival to Bill the Butcher (brilliantly portrayed by Lewis). Such a turn of events would have made for more interesting viewing. In stead we had one strong character being paired off against (mainly) 2 weak ones, which doesn't really help the movie at all.

Cameron Diaz never quite seemed comfortable in her role as Jenny - she either underacted it or overdid it (I couldn't decide which since she just didn't find the balance required to be a 'period drama-queen').

IP - I fully agree about Leo in Catch Me If You Can - brilliant movie IMO, I thoroughly enjoyed that (Tom Hanks was also his usual excellent self).

dont get me started on the Oscars... do you honestly beleive Chicago deserved best picture

Honestly? No - I would have given it to Road to Perdition. But then again, i don't know if would have nominated the selection they did.

[Millane]

well as Leo doesnt seem to be getting the praise he deserves ill stick up for him...
as i sorta said in my other post i dont think he was supposed to be as strong as Bill and the Priest or the priests old mob.... i think he was a character not weak but confused... he had just thought about revenge for his dad and then he gets out and he gets lost really... you cant compare characters like Bill and Amsterdam, Bill as obviously supposed to be a stronger character while Amsterdam was pretty much a nobody...
what i would really love to see is a prequel to GoNY which would show more Preist... i think there would be plenty to work with and i would dearly love to see the scene where Preist Vallon beats Bill and Bill cuts out his eye ohh yeah

[azalea]

I saw this the other night, and because someone nominated this for Academy awards, I now have very little faith in the integrity of the awards. There are three reasons this got nominated:

1. It was expensive to make.
2. Martin Scorcese has a lot of power in Hollywood
3. It was about New York.

It had so much potential, but it fell flat IMO. I really didn't have much to say about it, but reading the above comments, I wanted to respond a little.

I agree w/ Baby-K about Cameron Diaz. She is a good actress, but not a good period actress. She's too modern-day, or maybe she just does such "hip" movies and is so high profile that she isn't believable. Besides, I agree that her whole storyline there was superfluous. I actually used their big "love" scene to take a bathroom break. The whole romance thing was just so stupid and predictable.

I agree that Liam needed much more screen time, and that Daniel Day-Lewis' performance was the highlight of the film (although I really hated the gore -- that's just me, though)

I agree that throwing in the whole history lesson pulled the film in too many directions -- Tammany Hall, the Civil War, late 19th century Irish immigration -- the viewer could never hold on to what exactly the movie was about (I completely agree with you, IP). For all it could have been, this was a thumbs down for me.

[Incidentally, not to go off of this (dead) topic, but I happened to see for the first time Scorcese's Age of Innocence the other night as well, and that too was a complete bomb IMO. My mom had said how bad ot was years ago, but I saw it at the library and thought "well, she doesn't like period pieces as well as I do, so I'm sure I'll like it okay." Well, it was awful. I've never read the book, so for all I know it could have been the root story at fault, but it was so bad that at one point I just kept hoping a piano would drop out of a window and kill them both to put me out of my misery. (Oddly, the very last few minutes were pretty good) After those two losers, I figure I'll be pretty cautious before I attempt to watch another Scorcese film for a while! ]

[Millane]

Originally posted by azalea
I saw this the other night, and because someone nominated this for Academy awards, I now have very little faith in the integrity of the awards.

The fact that you ever had faith in the academy awards is surprising, although i do think GoNY was a great film, te academy's arent about a film being good or not...

Watch Taxi Driver its not as good as gangs but a very good film, you can just skip everything from when Travis says suck on this if you dont like gore (no wonder you thought Gangs was boring )

[azalea]

I don't mind gore if it's appropriate, but I thought it was overdone and even gratuitous at times in this movie. I would have known what was happening just as well if they hadn't done close ups on every whack of the butcher knife. Also, my husband didn't like the movie either, and he likes violent fighting in movies. I'm not saying it didn't have it's good points, I really did think it had potential. But I think Scorcese missed, rather than hit the mark.
(I haven't seen Taxi Driver yet, but I do want to. I can handle violence if the movie is good.)