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Gangs of New York: The Story Of An Uneven Tale It seems as if we live in the time of New York City. Everybody loves the big apple. It has seemingly become the quintessential American city in the aftermath of the horrible events of a year ago. But New York has been America's City for much longer, in fact if any city in the union can singularly represent what "America" really is, or was, New York wins the prize. Sitting down to read the Gangs of New York script that mysteriously found its way to me yesterday these were the thoughts floating through my brain. I was riding on a New York nostalgia high and ready for more. And after making my way through the thick One hundred and thirty some pages of this adaptation of Herbert Asbury’s book about nineteenth century New York my convictions that this great city does indeed hold the true spirit of this melting pot nation we live in run true. On the surface "Gangs" is trying to tell the tale of a young man, Amsterdam, who is orphaned at a young age by the murder of his father and grows to adulthood struggling to survive and striving for vengeance. Around this simple plot the screenwriting team has layered several other subplots. Some about love, some about loss, but most about the struggle for life in the mean streets and gutters of 19th century New York City. After reading the script though a deeper vision emerges and this is where I think the screenwriters were most successful. The vision is of a New York, and in a certain sense the country that we are not familiar with. A rough and tumble world were life was not always fair. The story, as its written, takes place just before the beginning of the Civil War, merely 70 years after the birth of the United States. The writers have captured a picture of New York in its infancy and that picture is both spellbinding and difficult to watch at the same time. This is the screenwriter’s greatest success. Character wise the team did a good job as well. Each is completely filled out. The lead, Amsterdam, is entirely believable and one can feel the rage and drive inside him to avenge his father’s death and bring honor to his family’s name. His foes are similarly well crafted. Bull the butcher, boss tweed, and the other members of the Tammany political party are a joy to read. The dialogue the characters have been given flows freely from the tongues of the time and just feel right. Not once was I jarred from the reading experience, an occurrence all too common in the scripts I read, by heavy handed "on the nose" dialogue. There were some failures along the road as well. Most of the subplots could be done away with. Its not that they are particularly bad or badly written, in fact a strong point of this script is the dialogue and scene setting, they just don’t add much to the story. For instance, there is a subplot that concerns Amsterdam and a girl falling in love slowly over the course of the film. This entire storyline seems to only serve the purpose of showing us that he is so completely dedicated to avenging his father that he would give up the only other person who has ever really loved him. In theory that sounds heroic and somewhat tragic, at he very least it sounds interesting. On page however, in come off as flat and unnecessary. Jenny seems to pop up from time to time to remind us, and Amsterdam, that she is there. This kind of subplot could have been extremely useful in telling this story. But as it stands this, and several other subplots, just seem pointless and tacked on. Overall my impression of this script is that the main story is a good one, the setting is amazingly rich and interesting and most of the characters are well written. The script does have some problems. For one the majority of the subplots are pointless and we end up not caring about their resolution. The script also has a tendency to be unevenly paced in places. This is the type of script that has potential to be a great movie if it lands in the right hands. Potential is a double-edged sword however and the final result remains to be scene. With the director of such great films as Cape Fear and Goodfellas at the helm, my hopes are high for this so-so script. ~Bobby
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