The Digest
Amsterdam Vallon was a 6 year-old little boy when he witnessed a life of altering event - the murder of his of father at the hands of William "Bill The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis). Amsterdam's father was a priest and served as the spiritual leader for his fellow Irish immigrants. It is with this power that Father Vallon (Liam Neeson) decides that enough is enough and he wants his people to live freely within the Five Points neighborhood and he wants some land for his followers who are all crammed in a converted brewery. In order to accomplish this, his gang, The Dead Rabbits, has to go up against Cutting and his "Native Americans". A fight to the finish - winner take all. Cutting is not to be under estimated. He has met every challenge thus far and still controls the 5 Points. He meets this challenge as well. The street is awash in blood and Father Vallon lies there dying. Cutting declares that Father is an honorable man and no one is to touch him. This doesn't matter to little Amsterdam who is quickly dragged off and placed in a reform school. The Dead Rabbits disperse and try to live under Cutting's oppression. Those who can't beat him, join him and try their best to forget they are Irish.
16 long years pass and Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio) has come home. It's 1863 and the country is in the middle of the civil war. This means nothing to Amsterdam, as he is only concerned with one thing - revenge. But revenge has to wait a while. He has come home to a different New York. The Five Points area is still controlled by Cutting, but there are little pockets of gangs everywhere that specialize in different types of crimes. The type of crime doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is making sure that Cutting gets his share of the profits. Even at nearly 50, Cutting is still to be reckoned with. There is also the small matter of Jenny Everdeane. (Cameron Diaz) Amsterdam has taken a fancy to her, but her odd connection to Cutting complicates the situation.
Over the course of time, Amsterdam gets closer to his goal, but also falls in love with Jenny. Can he beat a man that seems to have 9 lives and will he lose Jenny in the process?
The Dish
Many thoughts ran through my head when all was said and done. My first thought was "I just watched Colors for white folks." I asked myself, how was the movie different than any other movie about urban gang violence? And at first, I couldn't really answer that - well besides the obvious. Add 120 years to the plot; make the people a little darker and supply some firearms and it was just like any other gang-related movie we've seen and complained about over the last decade. Yet this movie is being heralded as an epic masterpiece and is being showered with awards. Interesting, is it not?
To be fair, if you pull back a few layers of the story, it' a about freedom of religion; the pursuit of happiness; a young man coming of age; and good old fashion revenge. BUT even this can not negate the fact that it is basically a movie about thugs. Violent thugs that have very little hearts. 5 inches of blood flowing in the street - now that is violent.
I'd like to have more sympathy for the Irish people, they were dogged by the white Americans. The immigrants were kinda tricked into participating in a war they knew nothing about. But the ones that didn't go to war didn't have a problem turning around and kicking a Chinese person in the stomach or calling a black person a nigger (which happened quite a bit in this movie). This is something I don't understand. I also don't get why Cutting and his white counterparts were so self righteous about being patriotic citizens, yet they refused to fight in the war, they preferred to just beat up all the foreigners. I'd also like to say that I'm not trying to diminish the contributions that Irish people made to this country. I'm just trying to keep it in perspective.
Having said all of this Daniel Day-Lewis was awesome. I've never loved hating someone this much since J.R. Ewing.
I expect to see him as one of the final 5 come Oscar time. Cameron Diaz was awesome as well. She may end up as one of the final 5, as well.
The Directive
For me, Gangs didn't really live up to the hype after 2 hours and 45 minutes, I couldn't figure out why it was held up for a year, especially considering the continuity errors I found. Gangs is definitely a rental, but I suggest a matinee if you just have to see it.
A few drive-bys and this movie could have been called Boyz - N- 5 Point hood
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Copyright Kamal "The Diva" Larsuel-Ulbricht, 2002
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