Themes: Out For Revenge, Haunted By the Past, Immigrant Life
Main Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly
Release Year: 2002
Country: US
Run Time: 168 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
The violent rise of gangland power in New York City at a time of massive political corruption and the city's evolution into a cultural melting pot set the stage for this lavish historical epic, which director Martin Scorsese finally brought to the screen almost 30 years after he first began to plan the project. In 1846, as waves of Irish immigrants poured into the New York neighborhood of Five Points, a number of citizens of British and Dutch heritage who were born in the United States began making an open display of their resentment toward the new arrivals. William Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), better known as "Bill the Butcher" for his deadly skill with a knife, bands his fellow "Native Americans" into a gang to take on the Irish immigrants; the immigrants in turn form a gang of their own, "The Dead Rabbits," organized by Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson). After an especially bloody clash between the Natives and the Rabbits leaves Vallon dead, his son goes missing; the boy ends up in a brutal reform school before returning to the Five Points in 1862 as Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio). Now a strapping adult who has learned how to fight, Amsterdam has come to seek vengeance against Bill the Butcher, whose underworld control of the Five Points through violence and intimidation dovetails with the open corruption of New York politician "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent). Amsterdam gradually penetrates Bill the Butcher's inner circle, and he soon becomes his trusted assistant. Amsterdam also finds himself falling for Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz), a beautiful but street-smart thief who was once involved with Bill. Amsterdam is learning a great deal from Bill, but before he can turn the tables on the man who killed his father, Amsterdam's true identity is exposed, even though he has concealed it from nearly everyone, including Jenny. Gangs Of New York was the first film in two years from actor Leonardo DiCaprio; ironically, it was at one time scheduled to open on the same day as Catch Me if You Can, the Steven Spielberg project that DiCaprio began filming immediately after Gangs wrapped. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Returning to Lower Manhattan's mean streets, Martin Scorsese's profoundly ambitious and engaging Gangs of New York sheds a different light on America's violent foundation myths. Embedding his signature concerns with Catholic immigrants, rival gangs, and arcane ethical codes in the spectacularly recreated squalor of the Five Points ghetto on the cusp of the 1863 Draft Riots, Scorsese's epic tale of nativist conflict, official corruption, and familial revenge is at once a precursor to his earlier Mob films and a sharp indictment of the usual American bromides about liberty and righteous conflict. From Liam Neeson's magisterial march through a baroque, torch-lit cellar to his death at the hands of Daniel Day-Lewis's eagle-eyed, fiercely charismatic "Bill the Butcher," the opening clash between Irish and "natives" is a stunning, kinetic montage of primitive violence. The U.S. military, however, is responsible for the copious blood on the streets at Gangs' tumultuous conclusion, overwhelming the archaic feud between Bill and Leonardo DiCaprio's Amsterdam and underlining the systemic bloodshed arising from Bill and his cohorts' entrenched racism and classism. Though the more intimate dimensions of the story are a mixed bag of allegorical romance and hoary Oedipal conflict involving DiCaprio, Day-Lewis and Cameron Diaz's California-dreaming thief, the visceral punch of the action scenes is occasionally matched by such quiet interludes as the flag-clad Bill's sublimely twisted disquisition on paternity and honor. A potent and thoughtful cinematic experience despite its flaws, Gangs of New York is Scorsese's most vital work since The Age of Innocence (1993). ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Liam Neeson - Priest Vallon; Henry Thomas - Johnny Sirocco; Brendan Gleeson - Walter "Monk" McGinn; Gary Lewis - McGloin; Stephen Graham - Shang; Eddie Marsan - Killoran; Alec McCowen - Reverend Raleigh; David Hemmings - Mr. Schermerhorn; Lawrence Gilliard, Jr. - Jimmy Spoils; Cara Seymour - Hell-Cat Maggie; Roger Ashton-Griffiths - P.T. Barnum; Peter-Hugo Daly - One-Armed Priest; Cian McCormack - Young Amsterdam; Dominique Vandenberg; Ilaria d'Elia
Credit
Maria Teresa Barbasso - Art Director, Nazzareno Piana - Art Director, Alessandro Alberti - Art Director, Dimitri Capuani - Art Director, Stefano M. Ortolani - Supervising Art Director, Gerry Robert Byrne - Associate Producer, Ellen Lewis - Casting, Luc Sante - Consultant/advisor, Joseph P. Reidy - Co-producer, Laura Fattori - Co-producer, Sandy Powell - Costume Designer, Vic Armstrong - First Assistant Director, Joseph P. Reidy - First Assistant Director, Martin Scorsese - Director, Thelma Schoonmaker - Editor, Michael Hausman - Executive Producer, Bob Weinstein - Executive Producer, Michael Ovitz - Executive Producer, Graham King - Executive Producer, Rick Yorn - Executive Producer, Maurizio Grimaldi - Executive Producer, Howard Shore - Composer (Music Score), Bono - Songwriter, Adam Clayton - Songwriter, The Edge - Songwriter, Larry Mullen, Jr. - Songwriter, Dante Ferretti - Production Designer, Michael Ballhaus - Cinematographer, Alberto Grimaldi - Producer, Harvey Weinstein - Producer, Industrial Light & Magic - Special Effects, Ivan Sharrock - Sound/Sound Designer, Tom Fleischman - Sound/Sound Designer, Eugene Gearty - Sound/Sound Designer, G.A. Aguilar - Stunts Coordinator, Jay Cocks - Screen Story, Steven Zaillian - Screenwriter, Kenneth Lonergan - Screenwriter, Jay Cocks - Screenwriter, Florian Ballhaus - Additional Cinematography, Michael Owens - Visual Effects Supervisor, Robert Guerra - Technical Director, Robbie Robertson - Executive Music Producer, Rachel Griffiths - Script Supervisor, Philip Stockton - Supervising Sound Editor, Francesca Lo Schiavo - Set Decorator, Graham King - Co-Executive Producer, Colin Vaines - Co-Executive Producer, Rick Schwartz - Co-Executive Producer, Herbert Asbury - Book Author
