***1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent, Brendan Gleeson, Henry Thomas, John C. Reilly, Michael Byrne, and Liam Neeson
Directed by Martin Scorsese & written by Jay Cocks, Steve Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan
2002 R
Dozen-or-So Best Films of 2002
Also like “The Battle of Issus,” “Gangs of New York” embraces hyperbole, and if you’ve seen the painting before (or if I can get the website to put it up) you’ll notice that the sun and the moon aren’t just in the sky at the same time, but seem to be causing the clouds to burst around them, as if they, too, are locked in the same battle as those on the ground. “Gangs of New York” is the kind of movie where you can’t walk into a brothel without being surrounded by an orgy, you can’t walk into a bar without seeing a fight, and you can’t walk down the street without seeing someone dance a jig.
Like any good opera, the main plot of “Gangs” is simple and direct so that we don’t lose where we are during its numerous—and I mean numerous—tangents. Bill the Butcher (Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis, in a performance as far from his dainty in “A Room with a View” as you can get) runs the Five Points, the main slums of New York, with an iron fist. Bill is a Nativist and believes that America belongs only to the Protestant descendents of the English and German colonists who wrested it from the British. He hates unassimilated Catholic immigrants with a subhuman ferocity, and treats the assimilated little better than he treats blacks. Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the son of Irish immigrant Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson), who died in a gory slum uprising against the Butcher. In his twenties, Amsterdam has vengeance on his mind and enters the Butcher’s service without revealing his true identity. While biding his time he finds himself entranced by the Butcher’s strange, hideous charisma, his determination, and by the fact that service to the Butcher is the best way to escape the squalor of the Five Points.
The two form a father-son bond and Amsterdam discovers the Butcher’s enormous respect, even affection for the late Priest. As the Butcher’s minion, Amsterdam takes us on a tour of New York during the Civil War. We go from the hypocrisy of politics and high society, whom Amsterdam describes in the same terms as any street gang, to the depraved struggle for survival in the slums, where ethnic gangs, thieves, police departments, and fire brigades seem to fight daily for food, or something they can sell for food.
Trickery and personal vengeance are not enough for Amsterdam to slay the Butcher though. Amsterdam learns that it was his father’s willingness to face the Butcher in the open that earned him the Butcher’s respect, and he must win over the respect of the other immigrants to join him in battle against the Nativists. Only by fighting for his people, he discovers, can he confront his enemy.
As important, if not more so, than the melodrama of Amsterdam and the Butcher are the numerous side-trips that surround it. These episodes, some ongoing and some self-contained, are often quasi-historical or revisionist, and come at us with a machine gun pace that might not be possible in a more realistic film. Chief among the subplots is that of Boss Tweed (Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent), a bearded and ingratiating sycophant who wants the Butcher to help him garner immigrant votes in forthcoming elections. He has no concern for the people at all, only votes, and he is quoted by a fellow elitist as having said “one half of the poor can always be hired to kill the other half.” Then there’s the desperation of the union to win the Civil War, leading to a scene in which Irish immigrants get off the boat, become citizens and enlist at the same table, are equipped, and get onto a different boat, from which dozens of coffins are continually unloaded. The conscription comes next, and the immigrants are none too pleased to die for slaves they don’t care about, leading to several gruesome riots against the powers-that-be sending them off to die.