Gangs of New York (2002)

A gory film about inter-gang warfare in New York in the period leading up to the American Civil War. A young boy sees his father murdered, and we follow the slow progress to the day he gets vengeance. There's a lot of quasi-historical material about Irish immigrants, but the story seemed to me to ramble too much to justify the blood and guts.

The period feel of the film was not convincing to me, despite considerable self-congratulation by the directors on the supplementary dvd disk devoted to the topic. However the middle third of the film itself picked up and the story line was convincing for a while.

When the young hero, newly released from an orphanage, is having the realities of life on the streets explained to him, the existence of "the She-he's" is included in the explanation (by voice-over).

Later in a religious meeting, we see that the She-he we saw for a second in that previous scene is again present amongst fallen women, with another transvestite companion. Both of them have neglected to shave recently.

The first She-he is played by Gennaro Condemi, but the second one doesn't get into the credits.

HF October 2004

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