A movie twenty five years in the making sometimes made me feel like I was twenty five years in the theatre. Yes, Director Martin Scorsese has been planning this movie since about 1977. I think star Leonardo DeCaprio was about 3 years old at the time.
The movie is an epic tale of warring gangs in mid-1860’s Manhattan. The poor section to be exact- called “The Five Points”. It’s an old story too – one gang leader (Daniel Day Lewis) kills another (Liam Neeson), and years later, the dead guy’s son (DeCaprio) is back for revenge. Throw in a woman caught in the middle (Cameron Diaz) and you now have all the necessary clichés in place. This from Scorsese? I rarely mention movie directors, but this guy is a legend. Time to retire?
Here are the problems – since the movie is set in the really poor section, the opening scene featuring the gang fight looks like something out of “Mad Max” or the “Road Warrior”. The people are really ugly. Dressed like Oakland Raider fans, the bloody man-to-man fights in the snow are cool, but who are we to root for? That continues on after the grown up son returns for his complicated revenge- the DeCaprio character is not very interesting. He’s not heroic, he’s not fierce, he’s not much of anything. In fact, Day Lewis steals the show and is the only involving character in this movie. Yes, he’s evil, but at least he gets you going. By the way, the difference between the gangs revolves around the immigration issue – Day Lewis’ native Protestants against Leonardo’s Irish Catholic hoards. DeCaprio is flat and doesn’t even seem interested in the part. His romance with Diaz doesn’t click.
I did find the last half hour interesting as the backdrop of the Civil War played beneath the warring gangs theme comes to a climax. The poor New Yorkers revolt against the wealthy ones over the institution of the draft. That might have been a far more compelling movie. If true, there was much about New York City history I didn’t know, and that could have filled much of the movie instead of this boring, drawn out story of “avenging Daddy’s killer”.
I credit Scorsese with lending a reality to the way people looked at the time – smelly looking with bad teeth. That may have made it hard for me to connect with any of them. But the story falls flat and the near three hours drags on – I give the “Gangs of New York” a “5.0” on the scale.
Friday, December 13th, 2002
This is a movie that plays so much like “real life” it is painful to watch at times. Jack Nicholson plays the role of Warren Schmidt, a 66 year-old guy beginning a new phase of his life – retirement.
Some guys go through a midlife crises. Not Warren – he’s saved it all for retirement. He’s married to Helen for forty-two years, they have a daughter who is about to get married, and it’s taken until now for Warren to realize he doesn’t like the way things have turned out.
Warren was an actuary for an insurance company and has led himself to believe he gave up chances for fame and fortune in order to do the right “Midwestern” thing. That is, to settle down with a nice woman and to raise a family. It’s no coincidence this movie is set in one of those “rectangular” states we on the West Coast like to mock. In this case it’s Nebraska and folks in Omaha apparently settle for a boring life – never chasing their real dreams, they end up trapped in loveless marriages and working dead end jobs.
I might resent that kind of stereotyping but these people do exist and this movie got it “dead on”. Look at Jack right from the first scene and it’s written all over his face. Then notice the attention to detail in this movie. The people in Jack’s town – his co-workers, even the lady working at the Dairy Queen -you probably won’t recognize any of them. They are not pretty looking Hollywood extras. They look like Omaha people. The movie was shot there and is it ever authentic. There’s a sense the whole town is trapped in something like 1987. I couldn’t take my eyes off of all this detail and it adds to a great performance by Jack.
It’s not an easy job either, because these Midwestern types don’t say much, and when they do, it’s all happy small talk. Warren is only able to overcome this by writing his true feelings in letters to his new foster kid, one of those “Sally Struthers” specials, a Tanzanian kid named Ngubu. It’s a bit of a plot convenience, but I’ll live with it because it’s kind of funny.
“About Schmidt” won’t knock you off your feet with out loud funny stuff, but by the time Warren gets to meet his daughter’s future mother-in-law, played By Kathy Bates, you really appreciate what Warren is going through as he looks around and seems to say “is that all there is?” Bates, by the way, is great as a lady who can’t keep much to herself, but it may be a bit much to have to see her rear end and Jack’s in almost back to back scenes.
This is one outstanding movie, but beware, it may be no escape from the real world. I give it a “9.0”.
Friday, December 6th, 2002
Lately when it comes to sequels, I try to ask myself, “how would you feel about this movie if you had seen it before the original?”. It sometimes doesn’t seem fair that these follow-up movies get so directly compared to the originals.
The answer I came up with this movie is that I’d find it okay, but nothing remarkable. After all, I thought “Analyze This” was a hoot, with not only a good back and forth between mobster Robert DeNiro and his shrink Billy Crystal, but great supporting comedy from Lisa Kudrow as the distraught wife and a very funny mobster henchman named “Jelly”.
This time around, all that is missing. DeNiro and Crystal have been given roles that are too serious this time. They spend too much time in this movie grieving over lost fathers. In fact, the movie opens up with the death of Crystal’s Dad and all I could think of later is “why”? There was no comedy material to be mined from this and it only adds to too many scenes where Crystal tries to get DeNiro to come to terms with his own Dad’s death. This left little time for funny moments with characters like Kudrow’s or even Cathy Moriarty’s, who plays a mob boss determined to take over all the action.
I found myself more interested in her time on screen than the main characters. In fact, there are a number of organized crime guys in this movie that took this so seriously, I was beginning to wonder if this was a comedy. They actually looked terrific and ought to try out for the next “Godfather” movie, but in this movie they were out of place.
They also try the old trick of putting a TV show within a movie by getting DeNiro a job as an advisor to a TV show patterned after “The Sopranos”. Bad idea as we get the usual over-the-top goofball director that movie writers love to spoof, but in this case is simply not funny. And as another example of what’s not funny about this movie, they trot out a couple of car chases and, of course, a few guys getting hit in the groin. Is that a writers union requirement by the way – every comedy movie must have a few guys getting hit between the legs?
“Analyze That” is a disappointment. The fast paced fun of the original is lost in the all too serious “psychobabble” of this loser sequel. Save your money – this month brings a lot more movies that have to better than this. I give it a “5.0”.
