When there are cinematic sins, they're sins of excess. But Gangs of New York entertains.
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I know. "Gangs of New York" earned 10 Oscar nominations (though it didn't win). And director Martin Scorsese did his homework, scouring archives, listening to recordings of New York period accents, consulting the author of Five Points, and basing most of the exteriors on vintage photographs. But two elements still feel phony to me. One is the opening battle, which feels like a cross between "Braveheart" (with all those axes, swords, animal skins, and feral dialogue) and "Bladerunner" (because of a post-apocalyptic set decoration). The other is Daniel Day-Lewis's performance as Bill "The Butcher," which feels like the lone caricature in an otherwise believable community of 19th-century New York City lowlifes. When he walks, wearing those plaid pants, his legs move like a carnival stilt man. Even contemporary-looking Cameron Diaz blends into her period surroundings better.
The whole time I was watching this I kept thinking, I can't wait to get to the bonus features to find out whether it's accurate or one of Scorsese's fantasies. Turns out it's a little of both. Scorsese took more than a few liberties. Though he got the inspiration for the "icicle building" that houses the natives gang from a period photo of a burned-out building in winter, there's no trace of ice or snow anywhere else, so it looks absolutely fabricated. And while historically Scorsese learned that the old abandoned brewery that houses the rival Irish Catholic gang was indeed a haven for the homeless and gangs, he took a tidbit of information ("it had nooks and crannies") and created a wholly imaginative interior that looks so bizarre and cavernous that it conjures up those "Bladerunner" images. But if you can get by the overly stylized and fantastic treatment in the beginning, the film evens out into a more believable depiction of American lives in turmoil and squalor. Big battles frame this film, and are probably intended to "hook" viewers. But I enjoyed the meat of this "sandwich" much better.
After the opening battle, which pits Bill the Butcher's "natives" against Irish led by "Priest" Vallon (Liam Neeson), we fast-forward anyway to 16 years later, where a stewing Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) wants revenge on the man who killed his father in that battle. He's quickly absorbed into the Five Points area, but not in the way you'd expect. Things have changed, and while "respectability" is too strong of a word, Tammany Hall and its puppetmaster, Boss Tweed (Jim Broadbent) is trying to work with the gangs in order to advance his own goals.
I may be a little hard on Day-Lewis, but I don't think so. If you consider one scene where Tweed and The Butcher have a sit-down, Day-Lewis's manner of speaking seems as artificial as one of those cancer-causing non-sugar sweeteners. Bill is the only one who looks and feels like a Thomas Nast caricature, while the others come closer to Jacob Riis photographs. But enough about that. There's still much to admire in this film.
Check out one of the bonus features, "Exploring the Sets of Gangs of New York." Scorsese and production designer Dante Ferretti walk and talk as they go from set to set. What's amazing, though, is that if it weren't for the cameras trailing them and an occasional light tower, there's absolutely no evidence that this is a Hollywood set. It's seamless. The men walk through all the locations, and you realize that they've essentially built an entire community, where even the hallways and alleyways are period. The film has a rich look, and in another bonus feature Diaz remarks about how amazed she was by a double candle chandelier that was so ornate (and did, in fact, have hundreds of candles on it) she couldn't believe it. Neither can we, and there are a number of details and features that make this a rich-looking film, despite the obvious conditions of extreme poverty.
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