Any DVD with so many Oscars, Golden Globes and Baftas hanging over its title is probably making a rod for its own back. It creates one helluva high expectation level on the part of the viewer. An expectation level which, in this case, is a mammoth struggle for the movie to live up to.
Running at just short of 3 hours, director Martin Scorsese obviously has a lot he wants to fit in. First off, theres the predominant plotline following Leonardo DiCaprio as the vengeful Irish laddie-o out to appease the murder of his father (Liam Neeson) by killing the moustachioed butcher responsible (Daniel Day-Lewis). Then theres the half-hearted love story unfolding between DiCaprio and an uninterested-looking Cameron Diaz. Theres also a bunch of stuff going on in the background relating to legal and political corruption, opposition to the floods of immigrants arriving at the harbour every day, and hostility to the impending Civil War army call-ups.
If my house was as cluttered as this film, Id be ashamed to let any unexpected visitors put as much as a foot past the front door. The acting is decent, though once again those expectation levels take their toll. Even Daniel Day-Lewis, widely commended for his blood-thirsty performance as New Yorks gruesome gang daddy, left me underwhelmed. Day-Lewis hadnt made a movie for a staggering five years before this one and hopefully he wasnt spending all of that time practicing his slightly-crappy NY accent. He does, however, provide us with the pieces only truly watchable character, if only because youll be curious to see who hes going to bludgeon next.