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| New York, 1863. Lower Manhattan is a place of lawlessness, rampant political corruption and great unrest. With the Civil War underway, the country is torn apart and on the brink of chaos. For the inhabitants of Manhattan's notorious Five Points, a war is also raging closer to home.
Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young Irish-American immigrant, returns to the Five Points after 15 years. There he seeks revenge against William Cutting, a.k.a. Bill The Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis), the powerful anti-immigrant gang leader who killed Amsterdam's father.
Amsterdam knows the first step towards accomplishing his mission is to infiltrate Bill's inner circle. But he is also drawn to Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz), an enigmatic pickpocket whose fierce independence and undeniable beauty fascinate him. Yet Jenny's hidden past unexpectedly complicates his plan.
Amsterdam's journey becomes a fight for both personal survival and a place for his people. His struggle reaches a fevered crescendo during the 1863 Civil War Draft Riots - the most explosive episode of urban unrest the American nation had yet seen.
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Here's what our members thought of this title. 5 stars = very good, 1 star = poor.
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Scorsese's tale of revenge, violence and warfare in 19th Century New
York.
Cinema loves New York City. Maybe it's the fact that, in amongst that cinematically pleasing spectacle of never-ending buildings,
it's a hotchpotch of racial and social diversity. Martin Scorsese's New York features poverty-stricken backstreets, where violence rules and loyalty and revenge are the laws of the game. It's there in Mean Streets, it's there in Goodfellas and it's there in Gangs of New York, the biggest and most ambitious project of his entire
career.
Gangs had been fermenting in Scorsese's mind since the mid-1970s but it took more than 25 years to reach the screen. To America's hippest director, Herbert Ashbury's 1928 book of the same name was more than just a history of New York. "Part of the history of America was right there in those streets," Scorsese says. "The characters were fearsome." America's history is a bloody one. And a shotgun marriage of cultures is at the centre of Scorsese's tribute to that
history.
Gangs of New York tells the story of an ugly part of America's past, but it's told with Scorsese's legendary finesse. Titanic actor Leonardo DiCaprio stars alongside Daniel Day-Lewis and Cameron Diaz in this epic tale of life in the underworld of 19th Century New York. Day-Lewis plays Bill the Butcher, a fearsomely moustached hoodlum who kills Priest Vallon - the father of DiCaprio's character,
Amsterdam.
Amsterdam inevitably seeks revenge, but the tale of personal vendetta and score-settling is echoed again and again in the large-scale gang fighting which is gripping New York
at this time, particularly in the infamous Five Points area where the story is
set.
Scorsese had always intended the role of the main villain in Gangs of New York to go to his old comrade-in-arms Robert De Niro. But, scheduling problems meant the director
had to look elsewhere. He then began to consider Daniel Day-Lewis who, since 1997, had been semi-retired, working as a cobbler (yes, really!) in Italy. Day-Lewis signed up almost immediately. Leonardo DiCaprio also signed up as the vengeance-seeking Amsterdam. Rumours abounded on the set of major squabbles between DiCaprio and the director, with stories of Leo turning up late and hungover, only to be disciplined by an apoplectic Scorsese. "Those stories are so exaggerated," says producer Harvey Weinstein. "Things always happen on
sets.
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"Unfortunately, Gangs didn't bag Scorsese that elusive Oscar, but it remains his most powerful film of the last decade. It is a wonderful, sweeping movie with immense scale
and scope.
See it, and be amazed!
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