Gangs of New York

Aroview: Dir. Martin Scorsese’s messy yet resonant epic based on a 19th century chapter that witnessed mass civil unrest in NYC is painted with the director’s trademark jarring violence, stylized technique and bravura flourishes, even if it ultimately strains to fulfil its broad ambitions.

Drawing bayonets and anything else that’ll do for a weapon, it’s a gleefully villainous Daniel Day Lewis leading the American-born ‘Native Americans’ against the Irish immigrant Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘Dead Rabbits’ in a bloody battle for New York’s impoverished and corrupt lower east side. More interested in the mythology of a heritage drawn in blood than historical accuracy, Scorsese is in his element orchestrating the awesomely physical (and beautifully designed) set pieces, though less certain with the emotional threads and the gentler demands of storytelling.

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