DIRECTED BY Martin Scorsese
STARRING Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent, Brendan Gleeson, Liam Neeson
Opens January 10, Cert 15 tbc, 162 mins
After all the hope, hype and rumours of conflict during production, itโs a relief that what couldโve been Scorseseโs Heavenโs Gate works, and works well. After relief, the next thing you feel is awe. Thereโs just so much in it. Long as it is, you soon want to see it again (without the pressure of oh-god-what-if-itโs a-turkey). You want to check whether those many subtle references to the directorโs own canon were really there. To see how heโs managed to tick all the Weinsteinsโ boxes (echoes of Titanic and Gladiator? Check!) without nullifying his art and vision. How heโs made bold, dark statements about religion, politics, violence (of course) and the history of his beloved city without capsizing a โvengeance-shall-be-mineโ ripping yarn. The moneyโs on the screen, but soโs Scorsese (literally, in one brief Hitchcockian cameo). Itโs great.
This despite the fact that heโs operating away from the milieu we think of when we say his name. The mean streets here are a world (and a century and a half) away from yellow cabs and hissing manholes. The adversaries arenโt motivated by modern malaise. And while Gangs is a more vicious, angry, blood-spattered beast than the slightly prissy The Age Of Innocence, itโs a history lesson rather than a howl of urban protest. Yet weโre forced to use the phrase โhistory comes to lifeโ. Youโre hurled into a mad, sick, tormented world of pain. That thereโs plenty of contemporary relevance (racism, riots) is exemplified by corrupt politico Broadbent on the pivotal election day: โThe ballots donโt make the results. The counters make the results. Keep counting.โ Thereโs more than enough here to prove Scorsese still counts.
The story, in brief: in 1860s lower Manhattan, the Civil War underway, young Irish-American Amsterdam Vallon (DiCaprio) emerges from a reform house, tosses his Bible into the river and hunts out Bill The Butcher (Day-Lewis), a domineering anti-immigrant gang leader who, 16 years ago, killed Vallonโs father. Vallonโs bent on revenge, but first infiltrates his way into Billโs inner circle. The lawโs a joke, stabbings are rife, feuding fire brigades bicker as houses burn down. Vallon thrives as a bad boy (Bill warms to him), then stuns himself by saving Billโs life, after which a strange, shaky father-son relationship grows between the two, despite the fact that the pupilโs sleeping with the masterโs former mistress, plucky pickpocket-whore Jenny (Diaz).
Wrestling with his Hamlet-heavy demons, Vallon eventually breaks cover, but Billโs not easily bruised, and now all hell rains down. With the pair symbolising โforeign hordesโ and โnativesโ respectively, the ensuing hatred and rage is painted with operatic violence by Scorsese, who kicks into visual overdrive. The costumes may be different but the climax is as breathless as that of GoodFellas, the bitterness as bilious as Raging Bull. Emotionally, itโs Italian. This is Scorsese, remember, not James Cameron. In the midst of blazing street warfare, an elephant escaped from Barnumโs Museum gallops by. A Fellini moment amid the mayhem.
The screenplay?by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian and Kenneth Lonergan?is tremendous: it takes an instinctive sidestep when any blockbuster clich