Gangs of New York vs. Once Upon a Time in America

2 comments

3 comments

Sorry, Marty, but someone made a better crime saga about old New York. ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA was the culmination of a great career (Sergio Leone, the great Italian director of spaghetti Westerns), and GANGS OF NEW YORK is... well... the most indulgent, incoherent Scorsese picture since NEW YORK, NEW YORK a quarter of a century earlier. Even a great Daniel Day-Lewis performance just reminds us how sub-par the rest of the production is.

I liked Gangs Of New York more. Maybe because of Daniel Day-Lewis. Sorry Once Upon A Time...

Totally agree with Protozoid; Once Upon a Time in America is perhaps the overlooked Leone masterpiece, simply because the Godfather saga and Goodfellas get all the attention. It is epic in a pure way, and for the record, I'll take De Niro in Once Upon... over either of his performances in Godfather part II or Goodfellas. Gangs suffers greatly from a sub-par Dicaprio performance and a horrendous Diaz performance (why was she cast in this?). Daniel Day-Lewis, as great as he was, provided only temporary respite from an otherwise pedestrian storyline.

Once Upon a Time in America trumps Scorsese's overblown epic in every respect.

Once Upon a Time in America for me. I think Gangs of New York is a bad movie.