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the first scene was pretty damn good........I'll give them that. I thought, "well....maybe this won't be as bad as "the Beach""......boy was I wrong. If the movie had only lasted 10 minutes, it would have been kick ass.........sadly, that was not the case.

There is an entire block of 1.5 hrs that is pointless to the story........they could have shown the first fight scene.....show maybe 20 minutes of Leonardo with the butcher .......then show the last scene.......the movie would still have made sense and would have kept a good pace.

Why do movie studios keep producing these "epic" length films.......running time of a movie in no way makes it better. It's actually a hinderance............."The Green Mile" lasted 3 hrs.........and kicked ass every minute of it, I would have watched another 3 hrs of it. "Braveheart".......yet another long movie that paid off........"Gladiator", now this movie owns all of these long movies.....I could have watched Gladiator for 5 or 6 hrs............

The reason for having long running times is simple, the time is needed to tell the story. This was not the case of "Gangs of New York".......the story could have been told in an hour.

I dread dying and going to hell...........I know I will be damned to spend enternity watching Titanic and Gangs of New York in an infinite cycle.

Not astonishingly historically accurate either, but oh well...

True Ushgarak. But there were somethings that strangly were historically accurate. Obscure things too.

I really like it, but I had read the book long ago

It was either that or gods and generals (4 hour plus movie, no?) for me...needless to say, I would have been better off in Gods and generals

aww, i liked this movie. ahahahha.

If you have the DVD, it included a show from the discovery channel and it said that most of the things in Gangs of New york are historically accurate.

yup

I dissagree, it was as close and they could cinematicly (sp) come... IMHO

After i watched GoNY the first thing i thought was 'Damn i just asted 3hrs of my life watching this piece of s***!, i rented it to see what all the talk was about but frankly i was dissapointed! but about the only thing i did like was the honor Bill the butcher had towards Leos father!

Actually it was in away historically accurate... You just never hear about it in history class. Thats because it was to violent to learn. Scarry isn't it!

Anyway for the most part it was pretty good. I always like Lionardo D'Caprio and Daniel Day Louis. I wouldn't say it was up with the hype but I enjoyed it!

Just because its violente they dont teach it at school? I which they did that here. I wouldn't have to learn much!

Well its not that it is violent its the fact it makes America look bad... Thats pretty much why... They teach negative views of American history for years but when it comes to things that are mentioned Gangs of New York... It is barely taught.

Well again if they didn't teach things that make my country look bad I wouldn't have a lot to learn.

Whoa, VP, the reality was WAY worse than that film showed it- it was too afraid of annoying the Irish. The fate of racial minorites of New York at the time- who had to flee to British and French ships in the harbour as mobs of Irish trying to protect their own jobs killed blacks wherever they saw them in the streets- was ignored.

True! I learned a lot of bad things but there is a limit to what is taught... Plus time.

Time! America isn't exactly big on history.

That's the thing, the film's message seemed to be about intolerance to the Irish but it completely absolved the Irish of the ASTONISHING intolerance they showed themselves- the Irish were against freeing the Slaves because they thought they would lose their jobs- they called it a '****** War', and that night they beat, mutilated and lynched 11 black men (dragging one black corpse by its genitals through town), beat women who had married blacks, and burnt down a black children's orphanage. Black owned shops were destroyed, a girl who tried to aid the wounded badly beaten, and policemen killed- and the core of all this was the Irish immigrants. There was no multi-ethnic mob- certainly not whites and blacks (despite the film's narration flat-out lying to everyone by saying there was), and it was not the work of the Nativists (unpleasant as they were). The rioter's motivations were purely selfish and violent. It was no wonder troops had to be sent in to restore order. And no naval bombardment took place.

But they did not want to show that, did they? Might have sunk the films basic message about Irish immigrants fighting for freedom, or whatever. Not wanting to tar all Irish with the same brush- always a bad idea to apply the mob to the whole- but this film is more than unhistorical, it is a gross distortion of history.

Anyone trying to tell you that this was historically accurate is talking horse manure. The costumes and sets are all painstakingly re-enacted, but the politcal background is ludicrous, and blacks being WITH Leo's mob in the end is so obcene as to be almost painful. If you want accurate, check eyewitness accounts, period records, or books like 'In the Shadow of Slavery' which are not trying to fulfill their own agenda when covering this period. Believe me- serious historians find this film's history laughable, and nowhere is it taught like this.

Incidentally, it has little to do with Asbury's book- to quote the screenwriter: "Doesn't follow the Asbury book at all. We supplied the story. Asbury supplied inspiration and a little history."

Sharing blame with the Germans here (and also pointing out that some Irish tried to stop the riots), here is the true story of it all.

http://members.tripod.com/~Chesnutmorgan/draft.html

Actually they showed a bitt of what happen with African Americans... It was not the focuss of the story though... I mean if they focussed on that it would be a whole diffrent movie.

Well yeah it is more violent then one may think.

Films don't show everything.

let me guess, you hate leo, lol he knows how to act though unlike ben "that guy" affleck, he sucks it looks like he's drunk.

Funny, I thought I was gonna end up posting that laughter on line
you beat me to the punch

I appreciate it wasn't the focus of the film, VP, but the point is that it still fundamentally lied about the activities of the Irish community at that time.

You should watch some European movies that are history related.

i kinda liked it!

I thought daniel day luis rocked as sam the butcher, (wait a minute, that was the brady bunch) I mean bill the butcher. Only Captain Jack Sparrow can compare as far as a new memorable characters in today's cinema. The movie itself, I thought it was decent, long, worth seeing. I appreciate the truth links and discussion of this film. One good thing that came out of this film's release is that people are now more aware of that incident. I hope, like us, they are discovering the true details as well.

"I hope, like us, they are discovering the true details as well"

Yeah right, I'd hate to sound like a pessimist but the chances of that are slim to nill. I like good movies, but it really irks me when people take movies that are loosely based off of historical events and take them as the gospel. Panther, X, Braveheart, and this one are prime examples of this though.

Its not historically accurate but hell no one knows much of what happened back then anyway because its been squished down. I seen a few view points on the film... One man said it had a lot of truth to it another said it had no truth to it... But hell America was not a goodie country as one may think.

aww this movie was garbage they tried to incoorperate to much artistic view on the movie which diddnt work, i think the movie could have worked being an hour shorter and better script writing, and i read somthing someone posted that they dont teach about things that make america look bad well why do they teach about chritopher columbus and the indians oh thats right they leave out the teachings about how columbus encouraged indian removal he had a day called scalping day where they went and scapled as many indians as they could but any way back to the subject at hand this movie BLOWS and diddnt even look good doing it

Umm, we actually have very accurate accounts of that night, VP! The entire Civil War period is VERY well covered for primary historical sources.

Oh the entire world knows that!

I actruly really like this film, Daniel day Lewis doing a Robert De Niro impression. Also some scenes really touch my heart, being half irish.
Although i hate what i have heard about the irish killing blacks, my best m8 is balck ans shes gr8. Any rasists out there can die

i dont really think that people were very racist when they killed the blacks. Its just that they were forced to go into a Civil War to rid America of Slavery. Im sure if any sane person were forced to go to war, they would be pretty pissed. Anyway, just rent the DVD and watch the extras. It really explains in depth of the things that happened in the old days. Even Bill the Butcher was a real character that Died the same way as he died in the movie when he said "i die a true american"

I don't necessarily think the gov. went to war because they wanted to put an end to the evils of slavery. Thats not the primary reason at least. Now if you had said the Irish were angry because they felt like they were going to war for african americans who were coming home and taking their jobs, now thats different.

And Bill the Butcher died the same way he died in the movie, but like 13 years earlier. It was a good movie, but alas it had painfully obvious historical inaccuracies.