Rich, detailed, and evocative, Gangs is what Martin Scorsese called “an eastern” – a sort of frontier, like a western, but in New York City in 1862. While the Civil War was raging down south, wars between “tribes” raged in the city (and not only ethnic tribes – municipal jurisdictions fought each other with equal pride and fervor). Gangs concentrates on the Irish immigrants versus the “natives” (who can’t be so far removed from immigration themselves, though no one says that outright).
The movie is bookended by two thrilling, masterful sequences. The opening is just stunning; it instantly grabs your attention and whips up your excitement. The ending seems to follow the same course, but it winds up being positively shattering. I can’t really put into words how powerful and transcendent these scenes are, but they alone would make me enthusiastically recommend this movie.
I was about to say that I wish the rest of the movie had been at that level, but I’m not sure I could stand it if it were – plus I think it’s impossible to maintain that level of emotion and passion over nearly three hours. As a sprawling epic and a work of art, it succeeds beautifully. You’re immersed in the time and place from the start, and all of the little sidebars that seemed like needless distractions during the film tie together in the end. The sets are marvelous and detailed, creating a vivid atmosphere.
It’s less successful as an intimately felt drama. It’s very hard to mesh an epic plot with a personal story, I think, and although Scorsese comes close, the background nearly overwhelms the individuals. Most of the actors create strong, distinctive characters, but they don’t have time or space to fully develop them.
Daniel Day-Lewis looks and sounds like a parody, with a really odd accent and a Snidely Whiplash mustache. He makes Pat Buchanan look open-armed and tolerant; after all, Buchanan seems to be okay with white people immigrating to America, and Day-Lewis’s Bill the Butcher won’t stand for even that. (And how odd to have American actors playing many of the Irish roles, yet a British actor playing the role of the anti-immigrant nativist.) But Bill isn’t so simple or so cartoonish – he’s genuinely terrifying but also has his own code of honor.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s accent is spotty, but he’s good. Unfortunately, he’s saddled with an overblown narration that would have sounded great coming out of Scorsese’s mouth. I’d say the narration should have been cut altogether, but it’s often necessary for historical background.
Brendan Gleeson, always a treat, is excellent in his small role, as is Jim Broadbent as Boss Tweed. Of the American actors, John C. Reilly and Henry Thomas get the Irish accent right in addition to their fine performances.
The movie ends with a lovely sequence of views of the changing New York skyline – you really sense how much Scorsese loves this city; Gangs is his valentine to it – but as disconcerting as it would have been to see the World Trade Center Towers there and then gone, it’s somehow even more unsettling for the movie to stop with the towers. It’s as though the city’s history stops there. And it’s made worse as the scene dissolves into the end credits and a horrid pop song starts to wail. (Yeah, okay, it’s by U2, but it just doesn’t belong.) This happens in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, too. Is it really so important to have a potentially marketable single that you have to destroy the mood of the movie?
This seems like a good place to add a sweetly idealistic quote from Scorsese that I read in Premiere: “My pictures don’t necessarily reach a wide audience. I never knew what audiences wanted. I actually thought that they wanted to see my pictures.” I hope so much that this time, audiences want to see his movie.
(Not that
it’s being made easy for them. Someone’s really fucking
Scorsese over here, whether it’s the distributors or the studios.
On Gangs’ opening weekend, in every multiplex I checked, it was
playing on one screen. Meanwhile, movies with less widespread
appeal
and less famous actors and directors, Adaptation
and About Schmidt, were on
multiple
screens. Nice way to treat a living legend.)
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