Gangs Of New York - This movie blows!
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Movie Review
This movie was visually stunning in costume and set design, very well acted and the dialogue was good. I am not a Leo basher either, I for one think he is an excellent actor and the entire cast did a great job. But the story was very poorly written and could in fact have been written by the lowest hollywood hack.



Warning - spoilers below:



First up, we have a priests son out for revenge. I think that Priests are supposed to be, uh'm, what's that word... Celibate. The Priests mandate that required celibacy was issued in 1139. I understand priests make mistakes, but without telling us the background story as to why this particular priest has a son it seems like just a really poor script error.



Also, I have no idea why these people (the Irish) started following Leo's character. He was not a leader, he showed no leadership qualities at all. He was not out to help them, he was a petty thug out for revenge. He never seemed to care a bit about the plight of the irish.



The movie is a menagerie of cliches



Cliche: Son of slain man wants revenge.



Cliche: He falls for the whore with a heart of gold who works for the villan.



Cliche: His friend wants the girl and betrays him to try to get her.



Cliche: Villan spares hero so he can come back stronger to defeat him.



I am suprised there was no training montage.



But, the clincher was they couldn't even do the cliche ending correctly. Leo does not defeat Daniel Day Lewis, a random cannon blast takes care of that, and we are robbed of even a semi satisfying climax.