Gangs of New York

I'll be honest, I usually find historical epics to be pretty boring. Even the good ones could use some trimming. Leave it to Martin Scorsese though to create one that's gripping from the first second of its nearly three hour running time to the last. It tells the story of New York City before it became the mecca of human civilization it is today, when the streets still ran red with the blood of the many warring factions that vied for influence and their many victims. The film isn't a true story, but besides some embellishments it may as well have been. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio in his first of four collaborations with Scorsese as the son of an Irish immigrant and leader of the Dead Rabbits, and Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill the Butcher, the man who killed him. It starts with a war between two gangs for control of Five Points, a district in the city where the poor make do. The extremely bloody battle sets the tone for the rest of the film, establishing its main characters and their later motivations, as the plot quickly jumps forward to when DiCaprio's character has grown up.

The two best things about the movie are easily Scorsese's direction combined with the amazing work done to recreate 1800s New York and capture it on film, and Day-Lewis' performance. You could pretty much cut the protagonist out of the film and it could just be a great story about a leader of both crime and community in a city as it slowly develops into something resembling modern society. That's not really to slight DiCaprio, that's just how good Day-Lewis is. There's just something cool about the place the film creates, filled with hard men with curly mustaches, top hats, and razors and knives tucked into their clothing. And he epitomizes it with his glass eye and inscrutable nature. You never know if he's going to cut your throat or give you a pat on the shoulder. DiCaprio has his romantic foil, played by Cameron Diaz, can't quite measure up to his work, though they're perfectly fine otherwise.

The supporting cast is fantastic too, featuring recognizable faces in a variety of roles, supporting various sides as they see fit. Liam Neeson brings plenty of gravitas to the couple scenes in the beginning where he plays DiCaprio's father, which lends weight to later scenes where Bill shows clear ongoing respect for his former foe. The small time crew DiCaprio runs with features Al Capone from Boardwalk Empire and D'Angelo from The Wire, and Brendan Gleeson and John C. Reilly give interesting performances as former allies of Neeson who may no longer agree with his ideas. The film isn't without problems, of course. The entire third act is pretty messy, as though the screenwriters lost momentum and had to basically force things to make sure they managed to check off all the plot details they needed to to reach their conclusion. And that conclusion, while thematically appropriate, does result in a rather unfortunate anticlimax of an ending. With Scorsese at the helm though, all of those individual scenes manage to be good if not great, and he makes the problematic ending work because it's very clear what they're going for. He just knows how to make great movies, and this is certainly one of them.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

I've had mixed feelings about the Harry Potter franchise for a long time, especially the films, and this one was no different. I do think it's David Yates' best work yet for the series, and the best movie since the third. And even cutting as much as possible, getting everything important from the book into a single movie without seriously compromising the story (The third movie is the only other one that really works on its own partly because they hacked off enough that it feels like a story rather than a visual CliffsNotes) might have ended up taking well over three hours, and I can see why creatively they wouldn't want to do that, even before considering that splitting it into two means double the ticket, merchandise, and home video sales. But making the seventh book into the seventh and eighth movies does damage each of them a little bit, just because on its own this one felt incomplete. Put together the two halves might actually make the best work yet for WB in this series, but as it is it's just the first half of an ending.

Deathly Hallows Part 1 immediately feels very different from the rest of the series, as it's clear from the beginning that bad stuff is going down, and we see nothing resembling the fairytale the first couple movies portrayed. Starting with the third movie (there it is again) the series changed a bit, showing more maturity as its central actors got better at their jobs and the story got darker. It's completely different here though; we don't see the school at all and get basically a single glimpse of any students besides the main three and their relatives. The entire acting population of Great Britain all come back to their roles here, though mostly only get a scene or two to remind us they exist before the movie pushes forward again. After an exciting if slightly silly action sequence establishes how high the stakes are by killing off a couple minor characters, Part 1 basically turns into a road movie with heist elements, as Harry, Hermione, and Ron search for the doodads that will let them stop the bad guy, brood out in the wilderness, and eventually have some catharsis in their various relationships before the climax, which does its job but just feels minor compared to the ends of previous movies.

The film is very well shot, with a dark and somber look that matches the dreary mood of what the world has turned into. There's still moments of comedy generally revolving around the fact that people casting spells all the time can be kind of silly, but for the most part there's a lot of doom and gloom. One of my favorite bits was a small action scene where the gang gets attacked in a coffee shop; the simple brutality of the damage done and the whole tone of the scene made it feel like a shootout from a mob movie, and I thought it got across the intended feeling of the film as well as anything. The section of the story where the kids are all camping out away from society trying to figure out their next move is already pretty infamous from the book, and it sticks out even more here when it dominates the second half of the whole thing. No single scene sticks out as terrible, but in general these parts feel repetitive and just sort of drag the momentum they'd built to a halt. The characters do learn important things here, but it just seems like they could have handled it a bit more gracefully and quickly. They probably could have found twenty minutes here and chopped them off the make the whole thing a flat two hours. Despite this problem, I do think it's one of the best movies in the series, and while it's the first one I didn't see in the theater, I'm glad I didn't see it until now, because it will be fresh in my mind when the final chapter comes out next month.

Braveheart

This is another movie I've seen large sections of but never the whole thing. Mel Gibson directs leading man Mel Gibson through a vast (and in places vastly inaccurate) historical epic that manages a special combination of artful filming and awesomely brutal violence. We need more Best Picture winners that feature a bearded Brendan Gleeson bashing British troops' heads in with a giant hammer. The first 50 minutes of the movie were well put together, and in places it was fairly moving, but I was still waiting for anything to finally happen. Then it did, and it was pretty great. The brief scuffle where William Wallace and the townspeople wipe out the British occupying their village might actually have been my favorite scene in the movie. It's not as grand or vicious as some later battles, but it's just extremely entertaining and satisfying.

After the rebellion finally gets going, there's a couple hours that alternate between the military exploits of Wallace and his merry band of Scotsmen, whether brief glimpses or full blown battle scenes, and the state of things in England as Patrick McGoohan brilliantly portrays King Edward. I seriously loved his performance. When he's not menacingly threatening those who disappoint him and passing laws allowing nobles to rape newlyweds, he's throwing people out of windows for speaking to him out of turn. It's pretty great. Things slow down after a couple things don't turn out well for the Scots, and then we go through a pretty nonsensical subplot involving the future queen of England. Some stuff happens and there's the last dramatic few scenes depicting the inevitable conclusion. I was actually impressed by how tasteful and powerful some of that stuff was. I don't think it does everything right, but Braveheart was a pretty outstanding movie of its type.

In Bruges

If my memory of the trailer I saw months ago is accurate, then In Bruges wasn't advertised correctly. They made it seem like a violent European crime comedy thing along the lines of something Guy Ritchie would make, but it's really more serious than that. The film is quite funny in places, but the story at the heart of it is fairly tragic. After a job goes wrong in London, a couple of hit men are sent by their boss to wait in the little city of Bruges for further instruction; one of them a rookie, the other an old hand. At first the movie is pretty lighthearted, as Brendan Gleeson marvels at the old architecture and all the sightseeing to be had, while Colin Farrell complains about what a bore the place is, and jokes around a bit. But before long we see that his character was deeply affected by what he did back in London, and pretty distraught over what he should do next. For some reason it's popular to dump on Farrell, but I thought he did a very good job with a really good part here.

As time goes on, it gets to the point where he really has to leave Bruges, but circumstances prevent him from leaving, and the boss, played by Ralph Fiennes, shows up which further complicates things. Gleeson is sympathetic to his plight and tries to help, but Fiennes is pretty much a bastard and has no such feelings. It's really a great little cast, the three leads are never all together at once but all share scenes with the other two at some point, and the interactions are always unique and fun. Farrell and Gleeson act like underage brothers, Gleeson and Fiennes are old friends with a history that makes things difficult, and Fiennes and Farrell have a very funny back and forth despite the circumstances of their meeting. There's a cute Belgian girl (who also plays a Harry Potter character along with Fiennes and Gleeson) and a dwarf thrown in to mix things up, and the finale is pretty unfortunate but has a sliver of hope to it. Everything that happens, even apparently meaningless scenes, usually ties in to the main story in some usually comic way, but despite the movie being generally pretty funny throughout, it hit me harder than most comedies do. Definitely should be seen.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The seventh book came out yesterday, which will finally end the story that millions of people have been caring about for a decade. I've always liked them, and the movies were entertaining visions of the story, although as I've said previously, of the first four, I'd only consider the third to be a good film. You can add the fifth to that to make it two good ones.

Whereas the first two were too childish for my tastes, the fourth just seemed muddled in its execution. I understand that in converting a book that long into a movie less than three hours long, you're going to have to make cuts and slim things down a bit. I just think they handled it better this time around than they did before. Goblet of Fire seemed all over the place, while Order of the Phoenix distilled the plot down to the necessary elements. I don't think it's much of a coincidence that the third and fifth books are my favorites as well, and it's quite possible I'm just holding that against the fourth movie subconsciously. It just seemed like they were more concerned with the overall plot. Of course Voldemort returns in the fourth book, and it's extremely pivotal for the whole series. Still, a lot of the actual movie itself was more concerned with the tournament and dances and stuff like that than what was really going on.

Daniel Radcliffe has come into the role of Harry well. It's a bit difficult, since Harry's 'roid raging throughout the whole thing, and it would have been easy to come off a lot worse than he did. The other students are pushed back a bit to focus on the main character, but they're still pretty good. Gary Oldman is great as he always is in his reprisal of the role of Sirius Black. The casting is brilliant as ever, with new characters like Luna, Umbridge, and Bellatrix all picked perfectly. If there's one thing the whole movie series should be commended for, it's the casting. My only problem is that they should have just Ralph Fiennes do his part instead of covering him with that stupid snake makeup that makes him look idiotic. This was also the most exciting movie so far, and the visual effects in the climactic scenes were great. Goblet of Fire actually cut monsters out of the movie, which was the opposite of what you'd think they'd do with a movie. Order of the Phoenix has combat between wizards at a level we haven't seen before, and it's really pretty sweet. The Order coming to save the day might be the best scene in the series. The final showdown was done terrifically as well, and the whole final act is just good. The story has already ended for some readers, but I'll make sure to watch the last two movies to see how they handle it.