Review by Jay Pinkerton View This Trailer In a time where battle rages, and disenfranchised warriors in the throes of poverty fight for their very freedoms, a young child watches his father fall in battle. Fatherless, the brave child leaves this land of turmoil, becomes well read and a master of combat, and returns to reclaim the rights of his people, fighting as a warrior poet to fell the men who wronged him. That film is Braveheart, and it seems to do what it does pretty well. Why Martin Scorsese felt the need to remake the premise, retitle the effort Gangs of New York, and replace the charismatic Mel Gibson with the nasally, rake-thin Leonardo DiCaprio is anyone's guess. But this is not the real issue here. The real issue is that, in listing off the plot of Braveheart, I just realized how much it sounds like the origin of Batman. Didn't millionaire Bruce Wayne also leave to become well read and a master of combat after witnessing his parents' murder ? Wasn't he also consumed with thoughts of revenge and justice? Indubitably. Plus, he was a detective. Man, I wish they'd get a team-up together between Batman and Braveheart. Who'd win? Would they kick the shit out of each other with devastating kung fu? Or would they sense the futility of it, put aside their differences and team up to fight a common enemy, like King of England Edward Longshanks or The Penguin? That's my guess. I seem to have strayed a little. Let me back up. The trailer for Gangs of New York seems to bear more than a token similarity to the film Braveheart, except that the Scottish people have been replaced with ridiculous-looking men in top hats and wide handlebar moustaches. Even the child watching his dad die looks exactly like the kid from the beginning of Braveheart, dressed as he is in the same cheap sack. In the trailer, the child (a young DiCaprio, I assume) watches as the evil, unnecessarily large-moustached Daniel Day-Lewis cuts down his father in cold blood. The trailer flashes forward twenty years. We see the child, now fully grown. He has spent time abroad, apparently studying hard at looking as greasy and Skeet Ulrichesque as possible. In this he excels. His training complete, and avenging his father's death clearly on his mind, DiCaprio pulls out the "knife that struck him down" and whips it into a wall. Presumably he also uses the knife to groom his wispy goatée into shape off camera, as no other sharp implements are visible. We then cut to the shipyards, where millionaire Bruce Wayne -- no, sorry, Leonardo DiCaprio -- disembarks and, now back home, looks for his father's killer. One quick cut to a bar later, he has apparently found him. Oddly, he chooses not to pull out the knife and throw it at the murderer. Hasn't he been practicing doing just that for twenty years? Maybe the wind resistance was off -- I don't have the knife-throwing experience to back me up here, so I admit I'm a little lost on the specifics. What is certain here is Scorsese's strong vision. That vision: To put Daniel Day-Lewis in a series of progressively more enormous hats throughout the course of the film. It is a vision he does not stray from. When we first see Day-Lewis, it is at the beginning of the trailer, when DiCaprio is still a boy. Even here Day-Lewis' hat is gratuitously, unreasonably large, blotting out the sun and covering the gangs of New York in darkness. Years later, when DiCaprio has grown in size, he returns to confront Day-Lewis, whose hat has also inexplicably grown still more immensely in size, and now has all manner of small satellites in orbit around it. I admit a growing curiosity to see the film if only to get an explanation for the hats, since I refuse to believe it was ever in fashion to wear them that preposterously big. The fashion perks alone couldn't be worth the resulting back problems. I theorize instead that it's somehow part of Day-Lewis' character to prefer hats of enormous size, for reasons that will be illuminated during the course of the film. Maybe he uses it as an all-body shield, retreating up into its cavernous depths like a turtle at the first scent of trouble. Maybe some of the titular gangs of New York crash there when they don't have a place to stay. Or maybe, since his gigantic ungainly hats are so distracting, he uses them as a way to outsmart would-be knife throwers, luring them away from face and body shots like a matador would a bull. The remainder of the trailer jump-cuts from action scene to action scene, and contains still more large hats, Leonardo DiCaprio dressed as Popeye, dancing geishas, explosions, and finally a scene of Day-Lewis wearing an American flag belt. Perhaps the trailer's intent is to baffle the viewer into a willingness to drop ticket money for the explanations, but I only found the trailer needlessly confusing and more than a little silly-looking. Given that this is supposed to be a Major Dramatic Vehicle for one of The Most Influential Directors Working Today, I am puzzled when I admit that the trailer is frankly awful. It makes the film look ridiculous. Given the amount of acting and directing talent behind Gangs of New York, I refuse to admit that the film is half as ridiculous as the trailer would lead you to guess. I sincerely hope not, anyway. Either way, I would not watch Gangs of New York based on the strength of the trailer alone. I would, however, watch Gangs of New York if promised a spectacular finale where Day-Lewis' hat finally expands to near-infinite mass and density, transforming into a black hole from which no matter can escape, where it then proceeds to consume DiCaprio and several New York gangs in the ensuing chaos. If anyone watches the film, let me know if this actually happens. Until then, a shameful half a Billy Crystal. RATING: