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.