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Well, we were expecting to watch Jackass: The Movie last night. However, thanks to the stupidity of the local video shop clerk (me, tragically), we ended up with Scorsese's epic, historical cine-baby instead.
And what a big baby it is. Whether we're discussing its well-over-2-hour running time, the grandiose scale and spectacle, the themes of warring generations between (surrogate) father and son and the sense of the founding of a city from its blood-slicked streets upwards, or Scorsese's obsession/devotion to finally getting his labour of love onto the screen after decades in Hollywood, you certainly can't criticise it for a lack of ambition. Like Jebediah Springfield, Scorsese embiggens the place he creates, and the streets of the Five Points District overflow daily with torrents of blood, brutality, testosterone and true folk music, as angry, politicised and ultimately impotent as the citizens who create it. New York, and America, is a place preparing for war both within and without, uncertain and afraid of its identity and the way the future will shape it, and, above all, angry at the false image of it as one nation under God. I mean, which God, for example? There's at least two on display here, and Their supporters unite only in vicious opposition to one another. So far, so macho-Americana (aside from the foppish colours and styles sported by certain of the gangs). What surprised me was how well Gangs carries it all off. I was fully expecting to sit through it bored, impatient and spitting curses at Leonardo DiCaprio for being, well, Leonardo DiCaprio. But it's pretty good. Even Leo. True credit has to go to his co-star Daniel Day-Lewis, though, whose fantastically, and sometimes hysterically, insane gang boss Bill the Butcher has ruled the District mercilessly since dispatching Amsterdam Vallon's (DiCaprio) father, and who also effortlessly dominates any scene in which he appears. He's like De Niro's great-great-great-grandfather, with reservoirs of spite ruthlessness and psychosis still to spare. You even forget that he's dressed like Rupert Bear at Ascot. But the ending! Oh dear me, the ending.... Like De Niro's A Bronx Tale, Gangs flows beautifully, masterfully building the level of tension, only to have it pooched in the closing minutes. The eventual eruption of the street-level violence is matched by the sending in of the Army to quell the mobs, and the result is sadly messy and incoherent. It's all over bar the shouting in about fifteen minutes, and though it may well be historically accurate, a hell of a lot of cinematic power and viewer satisfaction is sacrificed as a result. And the final gradual, voice-overed fade between New York Then and New York Now comes across as trite and laboured, ably helped along this path by Ryan Adams' cringy MOR over the end credits. Like DeNiro's over-expositional voice-over at the end of A Bronx Tale, it serves only to irritate and to insult the ability of the audience to process the events of the events of the film. Rrrrr... Special mention must go to the brief appearance of John Sessions as a floating Abraham Lincoln in a theatre, which in itself almost (almost) makes up for the forced and annoying finale.
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