By turns sprawling and ambitious, classical and controversial, Gangs of New York evokes the epic effect of Lawrence of Arabia (or the dark circus feel of Nightmare Before Christmas) while existing as a grand film none of our time's bloated pseudo-spectacles can compare to. As Chuck Rudolph wrote: "[It's] a movie about history that in turn becomes history."

I think the very last scene (the lead up to the credit roll) ruined the film for me. It was so cheesy and out of place. The acting left much to be desired.

You definitely feel the sprawl. Diaz gives a bad performance and so makes the romance feel quite unconvincing. DiCaprio is horribly miscast giving a very lightweight performance. Poor narration, weak anachronistic music choices and the ending doesn't really work (cheesy closing shot). Still Day-Lewis is truly excellent and absolutely captivating, whilst the period detail and the opening are both great. All this makes a potential failure pretty watchable if disappointing.

80.250

Very dense with details, great performances from heavyweights like Jim Broadbent, Brendan Gleeson and Daniel Day-Lewis, almost totally ruined by Diaz and DiCaprio.

Scenery and costumes are pretty cool (cool enough that I am actually mentioning it). The problem though is that I think that is the best part of the movie. DDL is very good with his character (esp the knife throwing exhibition), and is fun to hate. I would almost go as far as to say I could give this move two sep scores for DDL scenes and scenes w/out DDL. I know the female role is needed, but wish it wasn't Cameron Diaz playing it. Some of her stuff could be cut to shorten the film.