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.
