Gangs Of New York

***1/2 – Starring Leo DiCaprio as a greasy-haired Irishman and Cameron Diaz as a thieving whore, “Gangs of New York” tells the tale of a the battles between various rival groups in the Five Points area of Manhattan in the 1800’s. I am by no means a scholar of 19th century New York history, and while Five Points (before it’s demolition around 1900) was known as a horrible slum, I somewhat doubt that the extreme violence depicted in this semi-factual book-based film actually occurred on quite this scale. Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Bill the Butcher, leader of the native New Yorker gang, was pretty interesting, and the film was beautifully photographed and well directed by Martin Scorsese. Be that as it may, the nearly 3-hour length meant that there were some dull spots, and the disjointed story didn’t have a very good flow to it. One thing I learned while watching this is that I could probably view a non-stop loop of people rioting and looting and still be entertained, as the last quarter or so of “Gangs of New York” was pretty much exactly that.