Cinepals - GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002) Movie Reaction & Review! | Martin Scorsese | Daniel Day-Lewis | Leonardo DiCaprio

Episode Date: August 18, 2024

Steph and Michael watch Gangs of New York for the very first time! In Gangs of New York (2002), a young Irish immigrant seeks revenge against the ruthless gang leader who killed his father amid the violent, chaotic underworld of 1860s New York City. Gangs of New York is directed by Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, The Irishman) and stars Leonardo DiCaprio (Inception, Titanic, The Revenant), Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood, Lincoln, My Left Foot), and Cameron Diaz (There's Something About Mary, The Mask, Charlie's Angels), alongside Jim Broadbent (Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Harry Potter series) and John C. Reilly (Chicago, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Step Brothers). You can watch the cut down reaction to this movie (and many others) on our YouTube channel https://www.YouTube.com/@Cinepals and the full length reaction is available on our Patreon page https://www.Patreon.com/JabyKoay SOCIAL MEDIA: ~CINEPALS~ YouTube: @CinePalsInstagram: https://instagram.com/TheCinePals Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheCinePals ~STEPH SABRAW~ Instagram: @StephSabraw YouTube: www.YouTube.com/TheWhirlGirls ~MICHAEL BOOSE~ Instagram: @BooseIsLoose

Senna. Pals. Hello and welcome back today. We are going to journey on another Scorsese road. That didn't go as smooth as planned. Another trip down the Scorsese trail. Another forced interaction with me, Steffs Abra, and Michael Boos. Hello, hello.

Gangs of New York. That's what we are watching today. Thanks for hanging out with us. We're going to jump right in. and so then too was our great city but for those of us what lived and died in them furious days was like everything we knew oh buried him next to his dad damn wow no matter what they did to build this city up again for the rest of time it would be like no one even knew he was ever here wow all right I'm impressed

Yeah. I mean, you know, it's Martin Scorsese, so like, it's hard not to be, but dang. Right. Right. Wow. That was a lot. Yeah. Right. What an interesting perspective on what the U.S. was like in the 1800s. Because I mean, like, a lot of people picture, you know, the Civil War and everything like that. And like the unions are the good guys because they're fighting for abolishing slavery against the Confederacy, right? But then you don't think about like the internal turmoil within the Union and, you know, drafting soldiers to fight in a war that was started by, you know, government officials and things like that. And I appreciate the perspective given because it's not a Wild West film and it's not a, you know, we're fighting for the good of America in the Civil War film. It's very much alike. This is what life was like elsewhere in America. This is what life was like in early American cities.

Like, it's always been this gritty. And, like, it's always been this downtrodden on the less fortunate. And that's just our history, unfortunately. Yeah. I think Scorsese, what he does well, and often he kind of focuses on similar issues throughout different movies, different times, different characters. But this, like, primitive idea that we all carry of being tribalistic in hard times, basically, it's like we all go back to kind of where we came from in a rough terminology.

but it is like all of these people you can empathize with even though some are shades of evil right where you're like this is years of growing up in this environment with your father's teaching you about this environment how you should think about yourself your people other people and then watching this cycle of violence continue and us fighting our fathers fight and not even realizing that the strings are being pulled all the while by the rich and wealthy yeah yeah exactly it's like Like these little tiny squabbles that keep everybody in their place, so to speak. We got better at the you versus me thing, but we're very bad about the us versus them thing. Yes. It's just human nature, unfortunately. Totally. You made a really good point later on when he's yelling about them allowing an African American into the church. It's like we make these arbitrary rules that make us feel better about the group we're in or feel better about our lot in life because we can build.

little or put down someone else, even though it's totally meaningless and clearly other people can get along. And they're obviously sharing the same lot in life. They all live in the five points. The Irish are just as put down as the African Americans at this point. And yet they're like, no, no, we got to find someone who's lower than us so we can feel good about how we are rather than trying to all come together and uplift each other. Because Leo makes a really good point where he's like, think about how many Irish people are coming off those boats every day. And if they felt like they had something worth fighting for, suddenly we have an army. Now, think about that if you extended that goodwill to all of the people that are being put down

by butcher and his men or, you know, are less fortunate in the five points. You've got two armies. You've got three armies, you know, you gather enough people, you gather enough goodwill and come together over this shared strife, then suddenly you can start making a lot of change. and it worked with the vote for the sheriff and it would have worked against an angry mob but they got too busy with their own personal squabbles.

Right. I know it was such a masterful accumulation of all the squabbles going on at once and it is such a weapon if not the weapon of the ones in power that is distraction. Like if there are groups of people

distracted with the other then they're too distracted to see what the bigger picture is. And it is still the best game played today. And who knows when it will ever end, but to like, to your point, what you're saying is like, imagine if we just realize that and we're not on different teams. We, in fact, might be on the same team. Maybe we need some relearning. So you stop using the N-word and other racial slurs.

But I think if you spent enough time realizing that we're all the same. We're all the same. Then we might not kill each other and we might be able to overtake a government. Anarchy. Anarchy. I'm a student of Allen Moore. To start the revolution. She's the means of production.

But yeah, I think Scorsese does a really, really good job of painting that picture. And when I was studying Shakespeare in college, they talk about how a lot of the ways that Shakespearean plays are political, commentaries about the politics of England is they'd set them in different places. They'd put them in Denmark. They'd put them in Italy and things like that. So they're like, oh, ho, look at those silly Italians doing the same exact thing we're doing. Yes.

The little people are like, oh, I get it. That's a political commentary. And then those in power are like, this would never happen. Too ignorant to realize the jokes on you. Exactly. And so I think what Scorsese has done really well here is he's done the same sort of thing where he's skewering modern politics

and modern life in America through the guise of, oh, it's the 1800s, that's not what America's like anymore. And I think that's really clever. And like the themes that he's working with here are applicable today. And it really gives a lot of credence to that idea that like those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Right. Yes. Totally. Great point. Yeah, there's a lot to take from this movie. And Scorsese films, it's like you can spend hours kind of extrapolating each little part all the characters and how they work in a greater way but it is all the while so fun to watch the actors he picks to fill or the casting director to fill these roles and daniel de lewis just stole the show for me like really it was such

he was so insane so insane the the fanatical patriotism i think was really what was chilling And again, like you, the use of Native Americans or natives and things like that, knowing full well that they are colonizers on actual Native American soil is such a really, really beautiful juxtaposition. And that whole monologue of him sitting there talking to Leo draped in the American flag as he talking about, you know, his fight with his dad and the last like honorable man. So cool. absolutely chilling just he is so talented and so incredible and just finds these moments of stillness where it's just his eyes moving and it's just all little things in his face that just tell a whole story right and you cannot take your eyes away yes the patriotism of him and when we're also fighting this idea of a draft and how many if you really think about the

massive loss during the Civil War, it's so disturbing. Over slavery, enslaving human beings, we lost over 600,000 people. And there's studies that are showing there's maybe upwards of 800,000. The magnitude of that loss for your country over things that don't even make sense if you actually break it down. But then also the sadness, because I think that there was a time for, and we're still kind of, we're finally kind of fighting our way out where we glamorized the draft and glamorized war and fighting for your country, which it's like, this is nothing to say that I am not so thankful for our troops and there are so many honorable people fighting for our country and for everyone's respective country. It just is like the idea that people are forced to give their

bodies away when you're not even giving them the means to have a life is. wild. And the depiction of that one shot where it's like it's following those Irish men down off the boat, signing them up for the war and then following them to get back on to another boat to go fight for a country that they just arrived in. We don't even know you. You know, they're coming here trying to leave strife and famine and the oppressive regime of the English back in the UK. And then they're coming here and just getting forced into a war that's not their war for a country that isn't necessarily they. and isn't super welcoming to them even though they're trying their hardest to get over here. And like that's, that's again, another, you know, foil of America today is the stuff we put against and the feelings and anger we hold against these people that come here looking for a better life are so desperate to leave their homeland and come here for, who knows what, poor treatment, you know, they're like not necessarily a great support structure, but they are

willing to sacrifice that to come here in the search of something. better. It's insane. It's right there. It's right there. It's right there. I know you can do it. It happened in the 1800s. It's probably going to keep happening. You're not coming over here for free bingo cards. Imagine. You know, that's so, that's so, that's what I'm saying you can get into so many facets of this script. True. Script. But all in all, this is, this was really great. This was a really good watch. Let us know what did you think about this movie? How does it rank in your Scorsese films? And before you go, make sure you hit that subscribe button bell icon on notifications and vote this up i'm suffra this is michael boose bye