Gangs Of New York

By EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * * *)

One of America's greatest film-makers had wanted to make this movie for almost 20 years. One of Europe's master actors had not wanted to make any movies for five years — he is reputed to have spent part of that time as an apprentice cobbler, learning at or presumably about the foot of a master in Florence. A third party was looking to repeat recent success as the junior partner of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

Martin Scorsese, Daniel Day-Lewis (above) and Leonardo DiCaprio (and, literally, a cast of thousands) bring one of the bloodiest eras in America's turbulent history to bloody, vengeful, treacherous, carousing life: New York in the decade or so from the 1840s to the Civil War.

It begins with a real, but not particularly well-known, event: the fight between the gangs who feuded for control of the Five Points district of Manhattan, where dozens of tribes collected to drink, whore, trade, politick and prosper. Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson), leader of one of the Irish-American gangs, the Dead Rabbits (a genuine grouping of Irish-American Democrats), gathers his troops. Forward into battle, see our banners go ... and his young son, Amsterdam.

At the end of the day Vallon will have been killed by his enemy William Cutting, Bill the Butcher (Day-Lewis). Amsterdam disappears into an orphanage, to emerge in his 20s and return to Five Points to avenge his father.

As has been noted elsewhere, this is the film that Charles Dickens would have made. Bill the Butcher is ruthless, psychopathic, tortured, and yet disarmingly human, even humorous. It is little surprise that Day-Lewis came back to cinema to play this role: any actor would have liked to step into the Butcher's shoes. His swagger, his knife-throwing bragadoccio, brought Day-Lewis another Oscar nomination alongside his win for the unforgettable My Left Foot. He won the Bafta.

Apart from the occasional appearance by characters from history (Boss Tweed, ruler of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party machine that ruled New York for decades; P. T. Barnum, the legendary showman), our story is concerned with Bill and Amsterdam, and Jenny (Cameron Diaz), the pickpocket who will become his girlfriend in a plot device so transparent that you could run it up a mast and call it Titanic.

Amsterdam's plan is straightforward: to infiltrate Bill's gang, win his confidence and ultimately kill him. Like Oliver Twist or Nicholas Nickleby, he is little more than a plot device for Scorsese to tell his history of the juvenile delinquent of a city, the immigrants, the abolition of slavery, the first drafts into the army for the Civil War and the first draft riots of 1863.

And really, apart from wonderful sets, superb costuming and attention to detail that ran so far over budget and time that few thought the film would ever be completed, let alone released, that's it. Yes, there are masters at work here — film-makers, actors, camera crew, historians. Unfortunately they should have made space in the budget for a screenwriter and an editor.

DVD features: movie (168min); commentary by Martin Scorsese; set and costume design features; Five Points history and study guide; Discovery Channel special, Uncovering the Real Gangs of New York; music video; Making of ... ; trailer.