Thursday, Dec. 18, 2003
Gangs of New York, Martin Scorsese, U.S.
He's been dreaming of this project since 1970. Now the dream — which, being a Scorsese film, is an urban nightmare — comes true in a teeming tale of Anglo gangs vs. new Irish immigrants in 1863. Daniel Day-Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio nurse their rivalry within a huge fresco of greed, ambition, betrayal and skull-cracking hatred. What did those roiling emotions create? The American city. And, here, a grand and brutal epic.