Set in New York City, 1840-1863, a young man named Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio) seeks vengeance against Bill "The Butcher" Poole (Daniel Day-Lewis), the man who killed his father. Though he secures the help of pickpocket Jenny Everdeane, the task at hand may be more dangerous than Amsterdam ever imagined when he realizes that his father was murdered as a result of gang warfare between the powerful Manhattan gangs. Amid the crooked cops and corrupt politicians of the Tammany Hall era, political enforcer Bill Poole stands out as only one scoundrel in the crime-plagued Five Points section of lower Manhattan in the early 1860s.
Boss Tweed: Bill, I can't get a days work done for all the good citizens coming in here to harass me about crime in the Points. Some even go so far as to accuse Tammany of connivance in this so-called rampant criminality. What am I to do? I can't have this. Something has to be done.
Bill: What do you have in mind?
Boss Tweed: I don't know. I think maybe we should hang someone.
Bill: Who?
Boss Tweed: No one important, necessarily. Average men will do, back alley amusers with no affiliations.
Bill: How many?
Boss Tweed: Three or four.
Bill: Which?
Boss Tweed: Four.