Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: Mr_Pleasington on January 03, 2003, 02:33:31 AM
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I've looked forward to this film for a long while and I must say I am sorely disappointed. The first half of the movie is great. The main character (Leo!) plays his part well and conveys the appropriate emotions for the problems he gets associated with. Daniel Day Lewis is an absolutely brilliant "villain" and is the highlight of the movie. The supporting cast also does a wonderful job, in my opinion.
The movie totally drops the ball after the first half. The movie totally shifts focus and the inner conflict that made the lead character so engaging is completely absent. Also, this film is possible one of the most anticlimactic of all time. I was terribly let down by the end.
All in all, it suffered from trying to tell too many stories at once. In the first half, they are all meshed well and seemed entwined, but they drift too far apart after that until they all suddenly (and disappointingly) collide again.
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SPOILERS
Against Mr. P's advice and my own common sense, we went to see Gangs of New York yesterday. What could have been an incredible film was marred by adding too much in that wasn't needed. The Cameron Diaz character (Jenny) did nothing to advance the plot and served no purpose other than to be Cameron Diaz. Where everybody else int he film looked scruffy and gritty, she looked like she'd just stepped out of a salon. And the big "secret" that she was sleeping with the Butcher was no real secret at all. What I was really expecting was for her to not only be sleeping with him, but that she was actually his daughter as well. It would have fit, especially considering the scene where the Butcher laments never having had a son.
Daniel Day Lewis as Bill the Butcher, the two-bit street thug who goes on to be a major influence in political circles (a la Al Capone) is easily the best part of the film as he walks and talks like he is channeling the spirit of Al Pacino (You talkin' to ME?). I really thought, though, that he should have known Amsterdam's (DiCaprio) true identity from the beginning and that he should have merely been keeping mum to play him along. For somebody who is supposed to be reasonably bright, he wasn't all that sharp.
The movie, also, was too freaking long. They could have chopped 30-45 minutes from the film easy and still told the exact same story. I agree with Mr. P that the ending was anticlimactic. Too much going on at once and not enough focus on the main characters. And the final showdown between "Amsterdam" Vallon and the Butcher was just silly and useless.
This movie coulda been a contender, but it is merely 2 1/2 hours of my life that I will never get back.
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The "You talkin' to ME?" quote is actually Robert De Niro, from Taxi Driver. I haven't seen Gangs of New York, so I'll have to content myself with frivolous nitpicking instead of meaningful contribution to the discussion.
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Yeahhh, THAT'S who I meant! Sorry, I plead brain fart.
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I went and saw it this weekend and feel like I was robbed of several hours of my life. Mr. P hit it on the nose that this movie "totally drops the ball after the first half." I think there was more of a climax in last weeks episode of the Simpsons than in this movie.
A BIG two thumbs down.