Gangs Of New York, Martin Scorsese's latest epic, is the story of Amsterdam Vallon(Leonardo DiCaprio), who after being incarcerated for sixteen years returns to the Five Points section of lower Manhattan to avenge his father's death. Upon his return he befriends Bill The Butcher(Daniel Day-Lewis), the man who killed his father, and falls for a pickpocket named Jenny Everdeane(Cameron Diaz). He eventually tries to kill Bill but is left with a big scar across his right cheek instead. This leads him to round up his fellow Irish immigrants as they wage war on Bill and his fellow natives, culminating in a bloody battle during the Civil War draft riots.
Available in a two-disc set from Alliance Atlantis, Gangs Of New York is presented in a widescreen format that has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions and comes with an english 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround audio track and a french 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround audio track. English subtitles are also included.
The special features, which are spread over the two discs, include an audio commentary track with director Martin Scorsese, an "Exploring The Sets Of The Gangs Of New York" featurette, a "Set Design" featurette, a "Costume Design" featurette, a "History Of The Five Points" featurette, a Five Points study guide, theatrical trailers, a Discovery Channel special entitled "Uncovering The Real Gangs Of New York" and the U2 Music Video for "The Hands That Built America".
A big selling point for this DVD is the audio commentary track by Martin Scorsese. Unfortunately though the commentary track wasn't recorded for the DVD but is comprised of sound bites from "Fresh Air With Terry Gross", which is distributed by NPR. Discussing the history and the making of the film along with the history of New York Scorsese keeps us interested throughout. A must for film buffs.
The "Set Design" featurette(9:06) doesn't give us much of a look into the creation of the sets but mainly focuses on showing us scenes from the film along with the cast revealing what they thought about the sets.
In "Exploring The Sets Of Gangs Of New York"(22:28) Martin Scorsese and production designer Dante Ferretti take us on a guided tour of the sets used in the film. This featurette also includes an option of taking a 360 degree tour of the sets. By enabling this feature, every so often an icon will appear on the bottom of the screen and by pressing enter on your remote you'll be able to take a 360 degree look at the set by simply pressing the left and right buttons on your remote.
"Uncovering The Real Gangs Of New York"(35:11) is a television special that originally aired on the Discovery channel. As the title states it's a look at the real gangs of New York as told by historians and authors who have written on the subject. Very interesting.
Also included is a "Costume Design" featurette(8:10) which discusses the research and creation of the costumes, a "History Of The Five Points" featurette(13:34), a "Five Points Study Guide", theatrical trailers for Gangs Of New York, Kill Bill, Frida, Chicago, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, The Quiet American, a video trailer for A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies and the music video for U2's "The Hands That Built America".
Seeing as there's not as many special features as I expected for a 2-disc edition they should of put the whole movie on the first disc and included all the special features on the second disc.
I'm also surprised that they didn't include the A&E special "Hollywood Reality:The Gangs Of New York" which I was hoping to see again. Also missing is deleted scenes(the original cut of the film ran an extra hour). Hopefully this means that a director's cut edition will be released but Scorsese has said that he won't be releasing one because this is his director's cut. He's also said that he'd like to include the deleted scenes on the DVD but they're not included so maybe he's reconsidering.
Nominated for ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, this film should of brought Martin Scorsese his long deserved Oscar. And even though it didn't win for Best Picture, it was beat out by Chicago, it is definitely the best film of the year in my eyes and should be added to any serious film fan's DVD collection.