There's very little innocence in Martin Scorsese's return to 19th century New York.
In 1993, Scorsese filmed Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton's story of life among the privileged. In Gangs of New York, Scorsese peers into a section of New York City that Wharton's characters would never have visited.
The Five Points was a small area of Manhattan near the docks that was home to gangs, criminals and newly arrived immigrants.
It is the American version of Charles Dickens' Victorian England with a marvelous villain named Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis) as the Fagan of Five Points.
Bill is a butcher who doles out much-coveted fresh meat to those who serve him best and there are many in Five Points quite literally dying to serve him.
Bill rules Five Points with an iron fist and a meat cleaver. Bill calls his followers nativists and their sworn enemy are the Irish immigrants who are arriving by the boat loads. Bill's sworn but secret enemy is the young stranger Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio).
What Bill doesn't know but the audience does is that, as a child, Amsterdam witnessed Bill kill Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson), Amsterdam's father who was the leader of the Irish gang, The Dead Rabbits. All the years he spent in an orphanage, Amsterdam vowed to kill Bill in the same streets where his father was slain.
In a twist right out of Shakespeare's Hamlet, when Amsterdam returns to The Five Points, he becomes emotionally confused as Bill becomes a surrogate father.
Amsterdam falls in love with Bill's former squeeze, the beautiful and wily pickpocket Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz).
Gangs of New York is a dark but robust saga of base emotions played out in the basest, darkest corner of a vibrant, emerging city.
Scorsese has rung frighteningly real performances from his large cast. Except for her first brief appearance, Diaz is pitch perfect as the woman who may not like the role her society has given her but plays it.
DiCaprio looks the part of the beefy street brawler but he shows all the confusion at work beneath Amsterdam's cool, confident exterior. This is a man who shut himself off from emotion and fears what is happening when he lets some creep back into his life.
Towering above everything, including Dante Ferretti's magnificent sets, Sandy Powell's exacting costumes and Scorsese's precise direction is Day-Lewis' powerful, passionate performance. In the hands of a lesser actor, Bill could have become a cartoon villain especially given the man's wardrobe, glass eye, greasy hair, mutton-chops and handlebar moustache. Day-Lewis shows us all the confusion and contradictions of the man's dark soul. It's a portrait of evil that ranks among the finest performances in years.
Powerful and arresting as Gangs of New York may be it fails to fully engage the audience.
It's more intriguing and fascinating than it is compelling. Scorsese keeps us at a distance as observers instead of inviting us in as participants in his magnificent history lesson.
(This film is rated AA)
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