Daniel Day-Lewis really does steal the show. He is the reason you watch this movie. Leonardo DiCaprio is good too. There are some great fight scenes that are really brutal. The movie is too long though and can be boring at some parts. I wish I liked it more because the setting and atmosphere are really cool.

The best thing about this movie is the atmosphere. It does a great job of taking you to New York 1863. I'm no history buff, so have no idea how accurate it is, but the setting is great and there are some truly great shots in this movie. Bill the Butcher is an exceptionally memorable character as the extreme patriotist, played very well by Day-Lewis. The rest of the cast is just ordinary. There are two reasons why I didn't like this movie. 1: there is only negativity; in the dark setting, the unlikeable 'hero', the motives of the characters (hate and fear), the fighting all the time, the sad ending, everything. 2: there is no character development, they all stay exactly the same throughout the entire film. It can be said that these two point were done intentionally by the director, to make people walk away with the sad, empty feeling that bad things will never change, but in my opinion it missed something to make me care about. Now I just shrugged my shoulders and moved on.

It was a good film. The storyline is predictable from the first 10 minutes and it's a very typical Scorsese film where Leo plays a very typical lead, although his acting is of course flawless. The development of unexpected relationships kind of define the word 'frenemy' in this. The main let down is on how long it is. I feel like not enough happens for the screen time to be as long as it is. That being said, I'm glad I've watched it and such an amazing part of history portrayed so simply, so raw.

I still don't know for sure if I should like this Scorsese flick about the (more or less) real happenings in New York of 1863! What is sure, however, is that this flick is intriguing and brutal.

Got through the first half...barely. When I realized I still had well over an hour to go, I quit. Read the synopsis of the movie and you'll know what's coming without wasting 2.5 hours of your life. I was not impressed by anything or anyone, and it was very difficult to reconcile the emboldened actions of the newly emancipated blacks in this movie. Traditional (read: _authentic_ ) history shows that the newly-freed slaves were still very much in fear for their lives and very much oppressed; they would not have acted in so bold and brazenly a manner among white men as this movie indicates. Hard to take a movie seriously when it can't even portray the most basic societal history accurately. I must say, however, that as an aficionado of fine headgear, I was captivated by the different styles of hats the men wore in this film. That's about the only thing it had going for it...