Summary

Greatly stylized gangsters story set in old new york. Grand in scale and ambition, Gangs Of New York looks beautiful in an ugly sort of way, but feels a little bloated as the story moves along. The acting is really great for the most part, but not all the characters accents hold up for the whole film. It has some of the camera work that Martin Scorsese is known for, but not all of his regular bag of tricks are used, and although he has done large scenes before with lots of people in them, this time most of the larger fight scenes looked very staged and many of the actors who are supposed to be selling the action just seemed to be going through the motions. Overall this is a really interesting film which takes a look at early New York history in a way never done before, but a long run time and pacing issues keeps this from being one of Scorsese's best. 4 Beards Out Of 5