Eye-popping ‘Gangs of New York’ lacks soul

In theaters

GANGS OF NEW YORK, directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian and Kenneth Lonergan, 165 minutes, rated R.

Of all the things Martin Scorsese gives us in “Gangs of New York,” a rousing opening, colorful characters, several impressively conceived battle scenes, an epic sweep and huge sets that show off the film’s $100-plus million budget, the most notable omission is a character worth rooting for.

Other flaws keep the film from achieving the greatness its hype suggests -it’s too long, too stagy, too broad, too unfocused and, worst of all, its sketchy history of New York City is sometimes annoyingly inaccurate. But none of this is as unfortunate as Scorsese’s inability to give us a character worth giving a damn about.

If he had given us that, the film’s shortcomings would have been easier to overlook, as the story itself would likely have had the emotional arc and energy it badly needs.

Shot on a back lot in Rome’s Cinecitta, “Gangs” is as big and as colorful as a cartoon, which is fitting, I suppose, since that’s what it occasionally resembles.

Based on Herbert Asbury’s 1928 chronicle of old New York, the movie is almost pure showmanship, a film so determined to be an eye-popping spectacle, its few pockets of substance are overwhelmed and lost in the process.

The film begins in 1846 with a bloody rush: A 5-year-old Irish boy – caught in the throes of a major turf war between Irish immigrants and longtime New Yorkers staking their claim to New York City’s Five Points section of lower Manhattan – witnesses his father’s death at the hands of Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis), a vicious man with an enormous mustache and a glass eye whose vision for the Five Points has no room for those who weren’t “native born.”

Cut to 1863. With the rest of the country fighting the Civil War and the Draft Riots brewing, the boy, who calls himself Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio), is now a man.

Just released from the orphanage that has been his home for the past 16 years, Amsterdam, looking every bit as bitter and as consumed with rage as you’d expect, is at war himself. He wants Butcher’s head on a block, which he plans to get by insinuating himself into the man’s life and fooling him with a close friendship.

He pulls that off – too easily, it should be said – but in the process, DiCaprio alienates the audience with a performance that’s so tight-fisted with hate, it never bridges the gap between Amsterdam’s fury and the pain he must feel for losing his father.

With Cameron Diaz as Amsterdam’s love interest – a squirrelly pickpocket who’s about as likable as syphilis – and supporting turns from Jim Broadbent, Henry Thomas, Liam Neeson, John C. Reilly and Brendan Gleeson, “Gangs of New York” is too big and bawdy to have any room for what it really needs: soul.

It’s a chaotic mess of unrealized ideas, storylines and themes, some of which burn on-screen when they do leave their mark, but too many of which are trampled amid Scorsese’s admirable – if uncontainable – ambition.

Grade: C

On video and DVD

XXX, Directed by Rob Cohen, written by Rich Wilkes, 111 minutes, rated PG-13.

In “XXX,” Vin Diesel is Xander Cage, a bald-headed, beefed-up bruiser in a sheepskin pimp coat whose intellect runs as deep as the tattoos crisscrossing his chest.

Nicknamed “XXX” by Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson), a member of the National Security Agency determined to have Xander as his next spy, Xander is an extreme sports superstar famous for posting a videotaped series of law-breaking stunts on his popular Web site, the Xander Zone.

But when Xander goes too far, stealing a senator’s Corvette, crashing it over a bridge and parachuting to safety in the film’s first big set piece, Gibbons hunts him down and pins him with an ultimatum: Either become a spy and help save the world from a crazy bunch of Czech hooligans or spend the next several years getting cheap tattoos in prison.

Reluctantly, Xander jets off to Prague – and “XXX” jets into the stratosphere.

As directed by Rob Cohen, who scored big with Diesel in last year’s “The Fast and the Furious,” “XXX” is slick entertainment without a brain in its head.

It’s dumb fun slapped silly, a new franchise inspired by the Bond films that’s not far from the porn its title promises – the film is a veritable orgy of outrageous stunts, most of which are kicked so high into the heavens, the film threatens to pass out as Cohen hammers away at the screen in an all-out effort to outdo himself.

The result? A guilty pleasure that occasionally feels like a right hook to the jaw.

Grade: B

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays and Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.