Along with THE UNKNOWN CHAPLIN, LONESOME DOVE, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and a few precious others, RAGING BULL is one of the defining films of the 80s.

Distinguished by such things as DeNiro gaining 50 lbs for the bookend sequences (John Wayne had done it some years earlier for TRUE GRIT, but was unable to lose it afterwards), Michael Powell’s suggestion to shoot the film in B&W after seeing some color test footage, classical music used as dynamic counterpoint, and the director’s idiosyncratic style which introduced Greek tragic overtones between the frames, it is an enduring masterpiece. If there are ten or so special films every decade, then it is one of the 120 greatest films ever made, and if all you can fit on your available shelf space is 120 BluRays, this should be amongst them.

Sound design is vital to the appreciation of RAGING BULL, and it’s a given that a good BluRay mastering will enhance the aural experience. On the commentary track Scorsese and Schoonmaker discuss the care that went into altering the perception of each fight scene by introducing different surreal sound effects.

There are new featurettes on the BluRay, and they are elegantly presented, in keeping with the formal beauty of the film. One takes place in a bar where boxers, memorabilia collectors, etc., congregate to reminisce, and we see a number of them interviewed. The opening shot outside the bar is beautifully lit, almost like a film noir, and the inside shots are equally lovely portraitures. All the featurettes are done with class, as befits supplementals for this movie. Producer Irwin Winkler shares in one of them the good fortune that befell the production as they were going way over schedule. HEAVEN’S GATE was shooting at the same time, and the studio was so distracted by the debacle of that production, that they really paid no attention to RAGING BULL. A fortuitous act of fate.

Most or all of the earlier extras are included as well. Fun seeing Johnny Carson engaging an honest-if-slightly-uncomfortable Cathy Moriarty in conversation shortly before the Academy Awards, for which she was nominated in the Supporting Actress category. She didn’t win, but considered herself a winner just for being nominated. De Niro and Schoonmaker did win, however, amidst a total of eight noms.

Also nice seeing a special thank-you on the film’s end credits for Haig Manoogian. I had him as a teacher at NYU as well. A nice guy.

“Scorsese achieves something entirely different than any other film he’s done. If you involve yourself enough, it will resonate for days”

Watching the trailers for SHUTTER ISLAND I feared it might’ve suffered from what I like to call the “Hambone Twist”. You know the cheap twist at the end where everything that happened to our main character didn’t really happen but was either a dream or all in the head of another personality etc… The ‘Hambone Twist’ is usually explained through quick flashbacks where we see the images of what we thought were something, become something they apparently were in REALITY. Thankfully SHUTTER ISLAND doesn’t go that route.

Without giving things away, Scorsese’s latest, dubbed a ‘Gothic Horror suspense thriller’ is one of the smartest, thought-provoking and semi-avant garde films I’ve ever seen. He successfully creates a mood and psychological world that is able to be both lived in along with Teddy Daniels (LEONARDO DICAPRIO) and interpreted throughout. It’s a B-movie concept given an A-List treatment, interwoven with psychological paranoia and the visual flair of a true master.

Scorsese is clearly a big fan of Asian Cinema and of the idea of dreams and reality plus the psychological aspects that surround them. He even played Vincent Van Gough in Kurosawa’s “Dreams” Back in 1990. Here he uses every inch of his imagination as a narrative filmmaker, his love of music and production design and Leonardo Dicaprio’s capacity as an actor to create a memorable, challenging and oddly beautiful view of insanity and the devastation that surrounds it. Thelmaker Schoonmaker (in her 22nd collaboration with Scorsese) officially rings in the new decade as the premier “auteur” editor of our time.

In order to enjoy or at least appreciate the film I think you do have to participate and doubt yourself and ask questions and be as involving as you can. The only thing there is no doubt about is that Scorsese was having boat loads of fun manipulating the audience, creating dream sequences and challenging the minds and sanity of the viewer. He does this in one of the most profoundly original ways I seen. What’s not original, but hopefully funny is the spoof I did on youtube.com/eastchesterjester

The fact that we may walk out feeling we’re unsure or crazy like the mind of our protagonist is proof that the film is a success. The film hasn’t left my mind and has already spawned countless conversations with other viewers. In a time where so many things are forgotten so quickly, that’s something special.

DiCaprio memorably transcends Scorsese.

Depicting crazy people is always tough. They never comb their hair and the drugs, instead of making them catatonic zombies, seem to make them don maniacal faces. Didn’t sage Forest Gump say it best – “Crazy is as crazy does”?

With the exception of CAPE FEAR (Martin Scorsese had to follow the original material and De Niro’s pleasure in playing sadist Max Cody brought a strong sexual tension to the thriller), Scorsese is not a director who should be handling the horror genre. What SHUTTER ISLAND is missing is a sexual subtext which adds a potent and horrifying dimension to nightmares.

In 1954, two U.S. Marshalls, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), travel to Ashecliffe Hospital, a concentration camp-like facility for the criminally insane on the remote Shutter Island. They are there to investigate the disappearance of a female child killer, Rachel 1 (Emily Mortimer).

Getting not much help from Ashecliffe’s Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) or Dr. Naehring (Max von Sydow), Teddy begins to question not only what is going on but why other patients are surreptitiously telling him to “run”.

The only thing a spare-haired crazy didn’t do is smile at Teddy while running her finger across her throat.

As a hurricane approaches and devastates the island making departure impossible, Teddy confides that he asked for this assignment. He believes that his wife, Dolores’ (Michelle Williams) killer is in one of the wards.

And Teddy is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to his participation in the WWII liberation of a Nazi concentration camp. He’s having flashbacks, especially when he intuits that Dr. Naehring is a Nazi doctor brought to the U.S. through Project Paperclip. If it wasn’t for the Nazi doctors operating in the U.S., there would be no LSD-induced mind control experimentation on patients and civilians. The Nazi doctors made lobotomies popular.

The answer Teddy is looking for might be found at the lighthouse, where he is told surgeries on patient’s brains are being done. In the lighthouse he finds badly beaten George Noyce (Jackie Earle Haley) who wises Teddy up. Trying to leave the island, he runs into Rachel 2 (Patricia Clarkson) hiding in a cave. By now, he’s totally freaked out!

If director Martin Scorsese is, as has been suggested, honoring Alfred Hitchcock, he’s taken the worst part of PSYCHO – at the end when the doctor explains what happened to Norman Bates – and bogged down SHUTTER ISLAND with a tad too much unnecessary exposition. The denouement is laid out very nicely. Trust the audience – we go to a lot of movies.

Even lousy ones like Garry Marshall’s VALENTINE’S DAY. Clearly no one read the overwhelming negative reviews and gave it a $52.4 opening weekend.

The screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis (from a novel by Dennis Lehane) is paced beautifully, giving DiCaprio a full landscape of emotions to explore. And he’s definitely up to the challenge. SHUTTER ISLAND is all about him and he’s fantastic.

The entire production is impressive though the music (Scorsese and music supervisor Robbie Robertson go back as far as THE LAST WALTZ IN 1978) is intrusive and awful. Scorsese, who by now has a strong relationship with DiCaprio (it’s their fourth movie together and DiCaprio will play Frank Sinatra in Scorsese’s planned bio of the icon), stumbles with the obvious heavy-handed directing. It needed a more intelligent handling and, as I mentioned, a sexual subtext.

Warner Bros. Pictures / A Plan B/Initial Entertainment Group/Vertigo Entertainment production in association with Media Asia Films
Running time — 152 minutes / MPAA rating: R

Sensational. Before, Martin Scorsese, DiCaprio, Damon, and Walherg were movie stars; now they are “Class A” actors. The only woman is the weak link.

I wish Jack Nicholson would shut up about his sex life.

Why has Leonardo DiCaprio made three films – and counting – with Martin Scorsese? Scorsese gets terrific performances out of actors. Watch THE DEPARTED – even minor characters have presence. With a first rate script by William Monahan (adapting Hong Kong smash thriller INFERNAL AFFAIRS – I tried watching it twenty times but couldn’t keep track of who was who), Scorsese delivers exactly what you want: highly stylized, and vicious-glamorous, characters.

The script is funny, witty, and dangerously smart.

You expect DiCaprio and Damon to be good, but you can’t wait for Mark Wahlberg to turn up.

And Jack? Its all about him, isn’t it? Scorsese, understanding that Jack can chew the scenery and the drapes, uses him selectively. But that grinning-crazy Jack does show up. To please his mega-star, Scorsese apparently filmed a three-way sex scene Jack wanted. Thank God it never made it into the film. (Nicholson told Rolling Stone magazine that he convinced Scorsese to include a sex scene featuring himself, two hot women and a sex toy in THE DEPARTED. He said: “I thought it would be more frightening if my character had a sexual component . . . so I called Marty up and said, ‘Look, I just thought of what would be an interesting scene of [my character] having wild sex. And in this scene with two girls, one of the girls is wearing a strap-on’ . . . This was my idea and improvisational, and Marty went for it.”)

And now this expensive perk is part of Nicholson’s at-home after-dinner entertainment.

Feared south Boston mob boss Frank Costello (Nicholson) takes a liking to pre-teen Colin Sullivan (Damon) and, teaching him The Ways of the Mob, guides his career path by placing him inside the Massachusetts state police. Colin, very intelligent and collegian-appropriate, soon joins the Special Investigation Unit. The unit is run by Captain Ellerby (Alec Baldwin) and he wants them to concentrate all their efforts on destroying Frank Costello.

Another arm of the Special Investigation Unit that runs undercover operations enlists Billy Costigan (DiCaprio), whose family history is tainted with low-level criminals. After an accusatory interrogation by Capt. Queenan (Martin Sheen) and his foul-mouthed side-kick Sgt. Dignam (Wahlberg), Billy agrees to go undercover and infiltrate Frank’s gang. He is busted, dropped from the state police, and goes to prison. Returning to the streets, his family’s legacy brings him into contact with Frank’s loyal right-hand man, Mr. French (Ray Winstone). His sudden brutality is perfect mob-molding fodder. Undergoing a nasty ritualistic initiation by Frank, he is on the team. Billy soon makes his dead father proud.

So here they are – Billy’s on Frank’s team but really working undercover, and Colin is on the Special Investigation Unit in constant communication with Frank.

But Billy is under tremendous stress. Frank’s crew kills people and Frank is a proud homicidal maniac.

During a highly tense transaction, both sides realize that they have a mole inside their ranks. For Frank, it’s obvious. It’s got to be the new guy, right?

The excitement never lets up, and Scorsese’s love of vicious criminals is mob opera. The only weak link is police psychologist Madolyn (Vera Farmiga). The underwritten character is not fleshed-out by Farmiga, who is clearly not able to emotionally engage us with her conflicted attraction to Men Who Kill. We should have seen her morbid fascination with dangerous men as she becomes involved with both Colin and Billy.

You know what I mean – those female public defenders who sneak killers out of prison, or those needy obese women who marry death row inmates. A more experienced actress would have found a way to telegraph Madolyn’s character flaws.

This is DiCaprio’s movie. You can see that his relationship with Scorsese brings out the best in him. As the messy killings mount around him, he starts cracking up. You not only see it, you feel it.

Damon has scenes that seem tailor-written for him. Everyone (except Farmiga) was terrific – I even loved the background players. And Baldwin, whose notorious bad behavior on sets are legends, must have behaved himself. After all, it’s a Scorsese film. It’s not THE CAT IN THE HAT.

Once again, praise must be given to Scorsese’s long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker. She edited the great Scorese films RAGING BULL, GOODFELLAS, CASINO, and CAPE FEAR!

By the way Jack, we really want to hear what you know about Brad Pitt’s sex life.

Credits:
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriter: William Monahan
Based on the film “Infernal Affairs” directed by Alan Mak and Andrew Lau Wai Keung
Producers: Brad Pitt, Brad Grey, Graham King
Executive producers: Roy Lee, Doug Davison, G. Mac Brown, Kristen Hahn, Gianni Nunnari
Director of photography: Michael Ballhaus
Production designer: Kristi Zea
Music: Howard Shore
Co-producers: Joseph Reidy, Michael Aguilar, Rick Schwartz
Costume designer: Sandy Powell
Editor: Thelma Schoonmaker

Cast:
Billy: Leonardo DiCaprio
Colin: Matt Damon
Costello: Jack Nicholson
Dignam: Mark Wahlberg
Mr. French: Ray Winstone
Madolyn: Vera Farmiga
Brown: Anthony Anderson
Ellerby: Alec Baldwin

For tax purposes I had to keep count: In 2004 I saw 225 movies. This number does not include DVD rentals or indicate the number of movies I saw twice. While I could easily condemn more than 10 as the worst films I have seen in 2004, here is my brief rundown of the top films of the year. But first, didn’t you cringe at THE CINDERELLA MAN trailer? What crass sentimentality dumped on us to stimulate patriotism for punching somebody senseless in a boxing ring. However, I really liked the SIN CITY and ELEKTRA trailers. And that BATMAN RETURNS poster? I get the message: Batman is kinky, virile, and brooding.

1. THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST: I read the book. I’ve done extensive research on crucifixion. Gibson did a faithful rendering of a widespread practice that was horrifically violent. Crucifixion was an immensely effective form of cruelty for a thousand years. I do not want a sanitized version of what happened to Jesus. The Catholic Church has been setting aside its founder in favor of His mother. Single-handedly, Gibson put Christ back in Christianity. THE PASSION was beautifully executed and a stunning recreation of the Biblical era. More significantly, it was emotionally riveting. To ignore THE PASSION is to snub all the people Gibson brought into theaters – for the first time in years.

2. LEMONY SNICKET’S SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS: Genius! Everything I want from a children’s fairy tale. The essential elements are all here: dread, evil, hardship, fear of adults, and a sublime villain. It is gorgeous to look at and drenched with extravagant characters, a dark mood, and an eerie menace. I think Jim Carrey hits his stride and creates a unique iconic villain. I saw it twice in one week.

3. THE MACHINIST: This year’s MEMENTO. Christian Bale is electrifying as a tortured man unable to sleep. It is not the weight loss that merits this one of the best performances of the year, it is that Bale committed himself to expressing the character’s deteriorating sate of mind so effectively. He never compromised. With so many movie stars giving up acting, Bale dives in the deep end of the artistic pool.

4. KILL BILL VOL. 2: Seen twice. We were wondering if Quentin Tarantino had left filmmaking; the KILL BILL movies put us all back in our seats. Tarantino has the unique ability to write fascinating characters so memorable that he has once again given other filmmakers something to sack and pillage. Tarantino makes The Bride an iconic figure and resurrects the careers of Daryl Hannah and David Carradine. If only Tarantino would admit he was joking when he said he would consider using Madonna in a film – if the role suited her. Quentin, no role suits Madonna.

5. THE AVIATOR: They left out Hughes’s well known homosexuality but kept in the sexless romanticism. Regardless of the politically correct considerations that have to sanitize “heroes” to insure a blockbuster (too many great homosexual men have been whitewashed by Hollywood in biopics. Why hasn’t the gay community complained?), Leonardo DiCaprio was able to suggest the selfish, nasty man buried beneath the enigma. It is a beautifully crafted movie though without Scorsese’s brutal mischief. Because of DiCaprio’s terrific performance and Scorsese’s extravagant filmmaking, I saw it twice in one week.

6. SAW: Nasty, cruel and cheaply done. Cleverness-over-money ruled the production and it shows. Isn’t this exactly what we want from a horror thriller? It has a very tight story and answers my question: Where are the original stories told with style and a definite point of view? There will be a SAW2 but lets hope they don’t add special effects and animation or a little kid with big eyes.

7. TOUCHING THE VOID: Still thinking about it makes me cringe. Would you cut the rope? And if you fell into a pit-less abyss, would you ever have the courage to claw your way out and then crawl around in the snow for days? This true story made me shiver. Regardless of the sincerity of the actual men involved, you, like I did, will come to your own conclusion.

8. OPEN WATER: Ha! Thank God, I don’t know how to swim! This based-on-a- true-story film is so tough and, since there was only one possible outcome, it is chilling and effective. Anyone can make an OCEAN’S TWELVE, but as Steven Soderbergh found out (FULL FRONTAL) not everyone can make a low, low budget movie (even with your mega-star friends as co-conspirators) and make it work. OPEN WATER, with two cast members, triumphed with creativity over budget.

9. THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON: I saw all the big budgeted films and I’m not naming any of them (except THE AVIATOR) on this list because most of them were awful, not because I am an elitist and need to praise small, obviously destined to be little-seen films. I hate those lists naming some Iranian film about a peasant who raises a chicken that absolutely no one sees. However, ASSASSINATION is on my list because Sean Penn gives a fascinating performance. How in the world does a famous movie star give a performance about a guy who is a lonely loser trapped as an office furniture salesman and make us believe him?

10. HERO: Because I couldn’t name BATTLE ROYALE which I only saw this year. BATTLE ROYALE is the only blockbuster Hollywood will never remake and if they ever do, we will all be emailing from Hell. HERO is gorgeous to look at and should inform Hollywood that we appreciate hypnotic visuals and a stylish storyline we have to pay attention to. We will be seeing for years to come how Hollywood translates the beauty of HERO into their action movies. I saw HERO twice.

Miramax Films / 170 minutes

QUOTE: Fantastic! DiCaprio channels Hughes. Scorsese finally breathes life into his muse.

It’s “Blame The Mother” month. ALEXANDER had Queen Olympias gnawing at him in her snake-adorned bedroom; Young Hughes had his mother – on her knees before the standing boy – inappropriately sponge bathing him while talking about germs.

(FINDING NEVERLAND’S J.M. Barrie’s parents were cleared of any wrongdoing while Alfred Kinsey’s father was a bully.)

With the kind of germ phobia Howard Hughes suffered from, how did he ever have sex with women?

Because it is very clear from THE AVIATOR that Howard Hughes was a stud! He had underage starlets stashed all over Hollywood. He romanced the most desirable women in film – but did he have sex with them?

There were other rumors about Hughes that have now made it into an explosive new book, “Howard Hughes: The Secret Life” by Charles Higham. It is called “a feast of scandal.” Apparently, Higham has unearthed facts regarding Hughes’s long-whispered bisexuality with several male movie stars, including Cary Grant and Tyrone Power. There was also a heavy sadomasochistic affair with movie star Linda Darnell. And those blood transfusions? Could they have brought on an AIDS-related death?

With the kind of germ phobia Howard Hughes had, how did he ever have sex with men?

After Martin Scorsese’s 2002 GANGS OF NEW YORK starring Leonardo DiCaprio, I was honestly worried about their teaming up for a biopic on the very complicated Howard Hughes. Would DiCaprio have what it takes to follow Scorsese’s former protégé and alterego Robert De Niro’s trailblazing path?

THE AVIATOR marks the return of Martin Scorsese. DiCaprio is terrific.

Apparently, extreme germ phobia is a slow moving affliction. After opening with the disquieting scene of a young Hughes bathed by his mom, we fast forward to a young, vibrant Howard Hughes (DiCaprio). He’s fantastically wealthy, having inherited a 75% interest in his father’s Texas-based business, Hughes Tool Co.

While Hughes has a lust for airplanes, he is enthralled with making a movie, “Hell’s Angels.” This four million dollar aviation epic took him three years to finish. He also likes publicly dating famous women and starts living with movie star Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett). When Hepburn meets actor Spencer Tracy and leaves him, Hughes takes up with Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale), who refuses to accept his extravagant gifts. Ava dumps him when she finds out he is having her tailed, the house is bugged, and her telephone conversations are being transcribed. Yet, when Hughes needs her she is there for him. By this time, everyone in Hollywood and aviation knows about Hughes’s peculiar foibles.

Upon seeing his filthy, boarded up mansion, Ava says to Hughes: “I like what you’ve done to the place.”

Hughes has time for flying, building fast planes, creating TWA, hiring indulgent right-hand man Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly), and causing rival PanAm owner Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin) to become obsessed with him. Trippe lets us peek in on the nastiness of corporate business by telling his men to follow-up on all the rumors he has heard about Hughes.

It is Hughes’s horrific plane crash that sends his obsessive-compulsive disorder reeling out of control. He is horribly burned and disfigured. Dietrich has the best line of dialogue here. When the doctor tells him that they used their stock supply of blood for Hughes’s transfusion, Dietrich replies: ”Oh, Mr. Hughes is not going to like that.”

The audience loved it. This is clever screenwriting.

The screenplay by John Logan, and Scorsese’s deft direction, gives us all the subtle clues (okay, there is no wink to a Cary Grant assignation) to Hughes’s mental deterioration without going into what his chief officers did to help him. It appears that all anyone did was indulge Hughes’s every whim.

Hughes takes to his screening room, gets naked, and litters the place with Kleenex and bottles of urine [Fun fact: Hughes stored his urine in large glass bottles, each carefully labeled and dated, in a garage near his home. As the number of "volumes" in his collection increased, he employed an assistant whose sole responsibility was to count and watch over them]. When Hughes finally decides to open the screening room door, his employees are shocked to actually see him for the first time. They are all walking around with white gloves on.

Ah, the things one can do when you have hundreds of millions of dollars.

Trippe wants TWA and gets his flunky, Senator Ralph Brewster (Alan Alda), to hold hearings on Hughes’s war profiteering. Remarkably, Hughes is able to travel to Washington, D.C. and appear perfectly normal for several days of testimony. How was this masterful feat achieved?

Apparently, Hughes went in and out of craziness while the ever-patient Dietrich handled his empire. The film ends with Hughes thinking about moving to the desert – Las Vegas.

Even though rock star Gwen Stefani – with a mere two lines of dialogue – has gotten the most press, Alan Alda is brilliant. At least Jude Law boldly admits he has only one brief scene as a fist-flying Errol Flynn. As I said, Reilly knows when he has the best line in the film. Blanchett dazzles in a tough role since Hepburn was not as likable as her iconic image. Scorsese can get great performances out of supporting actors. Everyone does an outstanding job, especially DiCaprio. As Hughes ages, DiCaprio grows with the role and you can see the emotional strains taking hold.

The entire production is breathtaking in detail. While I would have preferred Logan delve even deeper into the complexity of Hughes’s mental state on himself and those who suffered with him for a paycheck, THE AVIATOR covers a great deal of ground and leads us right up to a fascinating man’s cruel decline.

A RELATED REVIEW BY GLEN ANDRIEV

HELL’S ANGELS (Universal) 1930. 2 hrs. 11 mins. B&W with color.

Produced and Directed by Howard Hughes
Co-directed by Edmund Goulding (uncredited)
Dialog scenes staged by James Whale
Written by Joseph Moncure March
Cast: Ben Lyon, James Hall, Jean Harlow

In Martin Scorsese’s newest film, THE AVIATOR, we witness three burning passions that guided a young Howard Hughes: flying, beautiful starlets and film-making. With the DVD release of HELL’S ANGELS, the epic war film Hughes made in 1930, we see those passions first-hand.
HELLS ANGELS follows the aerial adventures of Roy and Monte Rutledge, two Oxford students who enlist into England’s Royal Flying Corp at the start of World War I. After sharing a few death-defying adventures, as well as sharing the same sexy volunteer, Helen, Roy and Monte are called upon to lead a dangerous air attack against the Germans.
Hughes is credited as this epic’s sole director, but he had assistance from skilled directors like Edmund Goulding (GRAND HOTEL), horror maestro James Whale and action film pioneer Howard Hawks. It would be fascinating to know who were the creative forces behind some of this film’s amazingly visual moments.
These moments include a nighttime zeppelin battle that has truly eerie and suspenseful images. During a climatic air battle, vast wide shots of battling planes are intercut with scenes where the camera stays with screaming and bleeding pilots spiraling into tailspins. These scenes make HELL’S ANGELS a DVD keeper.
The Rutledge boys tend to drag the film. Ben Lyon, as Monte, overacts at times, you would think he’s doing a parody of old-fashioned acting. James Hall, as Roy, is too bland and cheerless. One wonders why the sexually charged Helen attaches herself to him. 19 year old Jean Harlow plays Helen with energy and spunk. It’s appropriate she makes her grand entrance during this films’ soft pastel eight minute two-tone Technicolor sequence (By the way, this is the only time Harlow appeared in a color film.)
The other stars of the film are the war planes themselves. Hughes flavors HELLS ANGELS with tidbits of aeronautic info, such as how to control a crashing plane, or how to boost a zeppelin to gain speed, and more.

In 1930, Hughes produced three amazing films, this one, THE FRONT
PAGE (directed with hyperactive zip by Lewis Milestone) and SCARFACE
(with Howard Hawks as director. I prefer the Hawks/Hughes SCARFACE
over the Pacino remake.) As Hughes conquered other businesses, built his
empire, and perfected his phobias, his film legacy wobbled. His later films,
like THE OUTLAW (1943, with Jane Russell in a bra based on egg-head engineering) and VENDETTA (1950, with one of his last discoveries, Faith Domergue) lacked the energy found in HELL’S ANGELS.

Miramax Films
Running time — 168 minutes / MPAA rating: R

What drew director Martin Scorsese to obsess about this project for 20 years? Sometimes, obsessions should be safely left for mulling over during long car rides.

Luckily, Scorsese was able to seduce Daniel Day-Lewis to return to films in an extravagantly realized, brilliant performance as Bill “The Butcher” Poole. His hair, nose, moustache, arthritic walk, clothes, gravelly fluid voice and anorexic demeanor all pay tribute to his character. Every penny of the huge budget is on the screen in dazzling sets, but its scope detracts from one of Scorsese’s strengths – exposing his characters subconscious motivations. A movie must be more than set design and background extras. Without the benefit of a screenplay that mines his character’s past as an orphaned youth, Leonardo DiCaprio struggles to hold his own next to Day-Lewis. He’s just no match. The story drags on and the drama only comes to life when Poole is on screen. Day-Lewis is riveting. Embracing a villain’s best traits, Poole is violently unpredictable and charming.

The story, while historically compelling, is weak here and can’t sustain the bloated running time. Scorsese, who has stamped his mark on so many films, appears overwhelmed by the scenery. Remarkably, his vision is unfocused. He’s lost in the crowd.

The film opens in 1863 amid the backdrop of immigrants pouring into New York City. The “native” Americans of English ancestry resent the Irish immigrants who flood into the city at a rate of 15,000 a week. New York is a cesspool of crime, corruption, and lawlessness. The Civil War is about to break out. Grime, depravity, and menace are the currency people respect. The notorious filth and stench of early New York City is glamorized by GANGS’ elaborate sets. Immigrant leader Father Vallon (Liam Neeson) dies in a bloody turf war with Bill “The Butcher” Poole (Daniel Day-Lewis) over territory known as the Five Points. Vallon’s young son witnesses his father’s death at Poole’s hand. Twenty years later Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns seeking revenge. Poole takes a sudden liking to Amsterdam and allows him to become his protégé. Amsterdam quickly becomes interested in pickpocket artist Jenny Everdeane (miscast Cameron Diaz). While every sweeping epic needs a romance, here it lessens the hero’s resolve.

There are some uncommon touches that seem pressed upon Scorsese by show business overlords. An early music score is so hip-hop modern it’s glaringly ridiculous. And topless women abound – something Scorsese hasn’t indulged in previously. Perhaps it was appropriate to Poole’s debauchery, but appears condescending rather than a nod to historical accuracy.

While the story of the rise of Irish gangsters and the political machine that created unparalleled corruption in this country may have made interesting reading, the fact that it took three writers, Jay Cocks (THE AGE OF INNOCENCE), Steven Zaillian (HANNIBAL), and Kenneth Lonergan (YOU CAN COUNT ON ME) to craft the screenplay indicates that problems brewed early on (and were acknowledged). Scorsese works best when there is a definitive point of view present. Three screenwriters muddled the story’s spine and the weakened the film’s impact.

In light of current world events, GANGS could have been a metaphor for expressing how lawlessness and corruption have shaped the beginnings of a society. Or how different groups of people clash and then do manage to live peacefully together. GANGS stays reasonably close to historical fact in such details as the king’s ransom of $300 to avoid going to war (The History Channel’s documentary on The Five Points gangs theorized this would be equivalent to $40,000 today). But the story of the immigrants, the conflict of the classes, and political corruption could have used one dominant voice.

Cast:
Amsterdam Vallon: Leonardo DiCaprio
Bill the Butcher: Daniel Day-Lewis
Jenny Everdeane: Cameron Diaz
Boss Tweed: Jim Broadbent
Happy Jack: John C. Reilly
Johnny Sirocco: Henry Thomas
Monk: Brendan Gleeson
Priest Vallon: Liam Neeson

Credits:
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriters: Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, Kenneth Lonergan
Story by: Jay Cocks
Producers: Alberto Grimaldi, Harvey Weinstein
Executive producers: Michael Ovitz, Bob Weinstein, Rick Yorn,
Michael Hausman, Maurizio Grimaldi
Director of photography: Michael Ballhaus
Production designer: Dante Ferretti
Music: Howard Shore
Costume designer: Sandy Powell
Editor: Thelma Schoonmaker