Haven’t seen this since Jan 1, 2003, and now that my livelihood involves telling the occasional Boss Tweed story I thought I should check this out again. Back then I gave it a B, now I wanna bump that up to a B+. Even though the fight scene at the beginning just feels like a joke, and even though it feels like Scorsese et al were trying to cram as many cool New York Themes and Stories into their picture (cf. Summer of Sam) and, finally, if I think all that son avenging the father crap gets real tired real quick, I will say this: every frame of Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill the Butcher is priceless. One of the most fan-fucking-tabulous screen performances ever. I’ve gotten to thinkin’ that Johnny Depp was the only guy around who could do unexpected roles like this, but I’d forgotten about this. Adrian Brody won the Oscar; that was a mistake. Anyway, I rank this as one of the great bad movies.
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Jordan Hoffman is a New York-based writer and film critic working for The Guardian, Vanity Fair, Thrillist, Times of Israel, NY Daily News and elsewhere.
He is the host of ENGAGE: The Official Star Trek Podcast, a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and challenges you to a game of backgammon.