I do not want to see Scorsese tackle romance ever again. All of the Scorsese films that I love (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street, The King of Comedy) are not films with a traditional romantic angle, and they are all better for it. The relationship between DiCaprio and Diaz seemed so by the numbers and boring and a big nothing. It was old hat, like I had seen it a million times. I didn't care at all for DiCaprio or Diaz's performances in the film anyway, so maybe those two things influenced my opinion of the other. I had a thought that I never had before during my viewing of this film: "Do I hate Leonardo DiCaprio now?". I don't mean the person of course, but the actor. The answer was no, after some thought, but this film and his performance makes me want to revisit some of his other films to try to evaluate him to see if I actually like him or not. Cameron Diaz has never felt like an actress to me, but Leo at least has some cred with me for his performances in Django Unchained and The Wolf of Wall Street. It comes off that he could be these characters, and even though I don't think I'd care to rewatch Titanic, he at least seems like a character and not just Leonardo DiCaprio in that film. His accent in Gangs actually brought more attention to the fact that I was watching this dude instead of immersing me.
I feel that way about the whole film really. I kept waiting for it to feel like I was watching something different, but beat by beat and pace by pace it feels like a million other things and never once does it feel like it is its own thing. Daniel Day Lewis did a fine job, but his character wound up being a paint by the numbers bad guy. He is a great actor for sure, because he gave that character a menacing presence despite there not being much original about him. The story of revenge and getting close to villain to take him out only to be thwarted and punished in some way is something I've seen before. The riots made it seem like they could be leading to something that could change the outcome of the film and maybe give us a curveball, but ultimately Leo does what he would have done without them.
Gangs of New York has an interesting setting and interesting costume design with a somewhat interesting villain, but the film almost never does anything interesting.