Directed by:
Martin ScorseseScreenplay:
Steven ZaillianCinematography:
Rodrigo PrietoComposer:
Robbie RobertsonCast:
Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Bobby Cannavale, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, Stephen Graham, Anna Paquin, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Jack Huston (more)VOD (1)
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Martin Scorsese’s cinematic mastery is on full display in this sweeping crime saga, which serves as an elegiac summation of his six-decade career. Left behind by the world, former hit man and union truck driver Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) looks back from a nursing home on his life’s journey through the ranks of organized crime: from his involvement with Philadelphia mob boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) to his association with Teamsters union head Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) to the rift that forced him to choose between the two. An intimate story of loyalty and betrayal writ large across the epic canvas of mid-twentieth-century American history, The Irishman (based on the real-life Sheeran’s confessions, as told to writer Charles Brandt for the book I Heard You Paint Houses) is a uniquely reflective late-career triumph that balances its director’s virtuoso set pieces with a profoundly personal rumination on aging, mortality, and the decisions and regrets that shape a life. (Criterion)
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Once upon a time in the unions. Just as Sergio Leone has his dollar trilogy, Martin Scorsese now has his mafia trilogy, and I finally got to see its culmination at a time when I simply wasn't expecting it anymore. The youngest brother of The Godfather and Goodfellas arrived just when the deserving creator is close to eighty and boldly shows skeptics that age is just a number. Frank Sheeran's story is more nostalgic than the two aforementioned pieces, it doesn't need as much help in the format and imagery of the individual events, it simply sails, recounts, and reminisces for about three and a half hours, recalling things that are not easy to remember. He introduces a hundred and one supporting characters with removal, only to effortlessly run chills down our spines during a title pause with their fate. And in the midst of it all, the royal trio of Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and most of all Al Pacino remains, in incredible acting performances as legends at the twilight of their careers (for Pesci, even after its actual end), savor the most passionate of arguments and subtlest of nuances. I knew this journey would be about murder, the mafia, politics, and courtroom drama, but I didn't expect it to be so precisely about aging and the transience of each life, when the most important things are precisely those that have irreversibly disappeared.
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A modern classic? It’s more of a you-wish gesture masterfully timed for the period when Scorsese stirred up a totally anachronistic debate about high and low. The film itself relies on the use of technologies that have been largely brought forth by Disney (Tron 2) and Marvel, and on the robust plan of Zailian's screenplay, which again lavishly beats around the bush, but does not work much with the depth of the characters. De Niro's Sheeran is therefore a static and slowly shifting cruel mountain of CGI flesh, and his picaresque pilgrimage through the history of American trade union-mafia intercourse drags on like an old man. The characters who are age thirty move about like they are eighty and in some ways, this accurately captures the essence of Scorsese's work - this stocky, corrugated professorship that lacks elegance and fun segments, but as a whole functions more like a cinephile fetish and an obelisk worshiping the past. At the same time, however, it fits very well into Netflix's portfolio, where the absence of a strict dramaturgy is confused with a robust creative vision. Martin is too good a director to make a disguised film, but his firm The Irishman is as stimulating as De Niro's face when he fires lead into German prisoners in a miserable, unintentional paraphrase of Call of Duty. For me, it’s on the thin edge of cringe.
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When, after roughly two hours, The Irishman stops switching between the two narrative lines and three different time planes that together set the film’s rhythm, it becomes clear that the wedding was not actually the primary destination of Frank’s journey. At the same time, one important character from Frank’s past comes into the road-movie framework. Contrary to the custom of accelerating the pace as the end approaches, the film slows down and becomes more focused, no longer engaging in a series of diversions and jumping between numerous people and events. We realise that the memory of a given event is of fundamental importance for Frank and he wants to recount it in as much detail as possible, step by step, minute by minute. Thanks to the context provided by the previous two hours, we concurrently comprehend what this is leading to and what the individual characters are experiencing. We start to understand that Frank had merely been carrying out another one of his missions, which usually ends with a house getting painted. ___ In the first narrative line, Frank is in the final phase of his life, just before his death. In the other, he is heading toward death. It seems that all of the events in his life involve death and dying in some way. The detached approach to killing well demonstrates Scorsese’s departure from the more dynamic style of his earlier mafia films. In The Irishman, violence is not “cool”; sometimes we don’t even see it, we only hear it from a distance. If an upbeat song is playing in the car during one of the murders, that is only because the driver turned on the radio to drown out the death rattle of the strangled victim. ___ Frank's blackened conscience, a reminder of his sins and the incompatibility of violent behaviour with the feeling of having a safe home, is represented by his daughter Peggy, thanks to whom we realise that Frank fills his emotional emptiness with words and diverts attention from his inner self to the outside. Though Frank’s relationship with his daughter may seem to be of secondary importance in the context of a story in which people die, cars explode and mobsters bribe top politicians, it is that relationship which best describes how Frank feels and what he longs for above all else: to go out into the world reconciled with himself and with his loved ones. Despite first appearances, the core of the film thus does not represent Frank’s involvement in the structures of the Italian-American mafia and trade unions, but what he lost due to his career advancement. Civil dialogue and time spent in the family circle appear to be more important than a detailed description of the underworld and a factual depiction of Frank’s work processes. Rather than an epic mafia saga, The Irishman is primarily an intimate drama about dysfunctional relationships and the constant presence of death, the basis of which we always carry within ourselves (as we realise thanks also to digitally rejuvenated acting veterans). 95%
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I’m sorry, but with this film I have the same problem as with almost every gangster movie focused exclusively on the mobsters. When the efforts of detectives or courts to break the gang get some space (like in this year’s The Traitor or in Scorsese’s The Departed), I’m fine with it, but I hate to watch the fates of characterless, arrogant assholes whose actions, though not directly glorified by the film language, are presented as something cool that should “entertain” the viewers. More so when the main character, besides not having any character, also lacks any interesting qualities; and more so when it has an unreasonable four-hour long run. The Irishman is well made, I guess, and it will satisfy the fans of mafia opuses, but I couldn’t get anything out of it. The plot wasn’t interesting (moreover, despite a number of flashbacks, the conclusion is very predictable), I couldn’t even find any formal pearls, because, other than the digital deageing (that works so-so), there aren’t any. I didn’t find a single interesting scene that could be somehow formally attractive. In short, I only watched it out of respect for the gentlemen behind it, thanks to which, the last hour and a half or so is a little more interesting than the rest. But, even though I subscribe to the words that Scorsese addressed at Marvel, the sad truth is that I would rather watch again the last Avengers than The Irishman.
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The topic of disputes between trade unions and the government in America of the 1970s is not exactly my cup of tea. However, the pace of the narrative and the eye-catching depiction of the mafia world make The Irishman almost as good as Goodfellas. Moreover, we find ourselves at a much higher level here, among the uppermost ranks of the American mafia of that period. De Niro has the hardest task with an artificially young face with old eyes; it takes some time to get used to the digitalization in the first half of the film. He plays the killer in the traditional way, as we are used to from his similar roles. Pacino is more original, as his portrayal of Hoffa is eccentric, with political enthusiasm, great pride and the morally purest intentions of the whole bunch. He delivers the most striking acting performance of the film. For me, however, the biggest pleasure was watching Pesci, the man behind the curtain deciding who lives and who dies. He has transformed from a knife-wielding apathetic madman (Goodfellas) into a super-powerful player with a talent for mafia chess on whom all sides can rely. He excels in every scene. Keitel gets a minimum of space, but his role is that of one of the most respected bosses of the time. The director adds some of his trademark quirks, which stand out even more on repeat viewing. The top scene, which makes one’s blood run cold, doesn’t have a tense musical background, but is framed by an absurd dialogue about fish. The running time doesn’t seem too long at all, as this “road-movie” is about taking nostalgic pleasure from Marti’s unique style and a legendary constellation of acting performances we won’t ever see again.
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