Martin Scorsese has
made so many amazing crime movies that you would be forgiven for thinking if he
could even make another one. Justin Chang said in his review, “The great
surprise of his haunting and elegiac new movie, The Irishman, is that it
doesn’t play like a retread so much as a reckoning.”
Scorsese reunites with
the stars of “Goodfellas,” Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, but even though his
earlier mob movies had such amazing energy, “The Irishman” is filled with loss.
It feels older, wiser and considerably sadder. Chang noted, “There are still
wisecracks and double-crosses and whackings aplenty, but there’s no kicky
thrill to the violence this time — just a harsh aftertaste of emptiness and
futility.”
Since the movie goes
through so many decades and the runtime is 3½ hours, that’s admittedly a lot of
pointlessness. However, “The Irishman” is a highly involving joyride. Chang
mentioned, “ts measured pace is entirely gripping, and its gorgeous images are
well worth seeing in a theater if you live near one of the few venues where
it’s playing (before it hits Netflix on Nov. 27). On a big screen, you might
notice some of the minor imperfections of the “digital de-aging” technology
that Scorsese uses to make the actors look younger in different time frames,
but you stop noticing them after a few moments as the illusion takes hold.”
De Niro plays Frank
Sheeran, the Irishman of the film, and it is mainly about his and crimes.
Before he passed away from cancer in 2003, Sheeran admitted to killing
Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, who was reported mysteriously missing in 1975. One
of his former attorneys, Charles Brandt, said that claim in his biography of
Sheeran, I Heard You Paint Houses,
which is basically the blueprint for Steven Zaillian’s screenplay.
However, Sheeran,
narrating his story from a retirement home when he is 82, has a lot to tell the
audience before he gets to that point. He starts off in the 1940s, when he was
a Pennsylvania truck driver who had gotten in with local Mafioso Russell
Bufalino, amazingly played by Pesci who comes out of retirement to act in this
film.
Chang said, “Sheeran
becomes Bufalino’s most reliable hit man: Desensitized to violence by his World
War II military service, he kills efficiently and doesn’t ask too many
questions.” He’s so good at his job that Bufalino eventually has Sheeran
schedule a phone conversation with Hoffa, played by Al Pacino.
Chang noted, “Before
long, Sheeran is handling Hoffa’s dirty work as well, and in their bond, we see
the insidious ties between unionized labor and organized crime. The Irishman
compresses a lot of tumultuous history: There are reenactments of famous mob
killings, drive-by references to events such as the Bay of Pigs invasion, and
even a brief nod to the conspiracy theory that the mob ordered the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”
However, for every one
of the movie’s historical show and its amazing supporting cast with actors like
Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale and Harvey Keitel, it’s the three main actors that
make the movie so engaging. Chang said, “Scorsese is fascinated by the codes of
loyalty that bind Sheeran, Bufalino and Hoffa — and also by the petty rivalries
and power struggles that threaten to destroy them.”
De Niro, Pesci and
Pacino are really bring their all, partly because they aren’t just redoing the
famous gangster characters they’ve played before. Pesci makes Bufalino quiet
and calculating – the complete opposite of the easily mad goodfella character
that won him an Oscar.
Chang credited, “Pacino
gets to go big and boisterous without tilting into bombast.” He puts a large amount
of love into the role of Hoffa, a man of nice pleasures – he loves ice cream
more than anything – and old-school habits, like when he really gets on someone
for showing up late to a meeting.
As for De Niro, he has
a quietly chilling and finally twisting performance as a man who obediently is
influenced into criminal acts. Chang noted, “The last third of The Irishman
slows to a riveting crawl as it reconstructs what may or may not have happened
in Hoffa’s final hours.” Scorsese takes out the tension to a high level. He
wants us to really absorb the horror and weight of what it means to kill
somebody.
Chang admitted, “I
haven’t yet mentioned Sheeran’s wives and children, which is fitting, since he
mostly treats them as afterthoughts. Scorsese doesn’t make the same mistake.”
Sheeran’s daughter Peggy, played at different ages by Lucy Gallina and Anna
Paquin, becomes the main daughter they focus on. Peggy doesn’t say much, but
her silence speaks for itself through the movie’s entire male dominance. With
every sarcastic look, she gives a harsh judgment of her father and the terrible,
evil world where he is living in.
Like I had mentioned before,
this movie is 3½ hours long, so that’s why I watched it while exercising. I can’t
watch a movie that long in one sitting, so that’s why it was good to watch
while I exercise. However, it’s one of those long movies that is engaging
throughout. You should see this movie if you’re a fan of the three lead actors
and of the director. It feels really nostalgic to see them collaborate on
another film after so many years, especially when it’s about a real event.
Thank you for joining
in on today’s review, stay tuned tomorrow to see what I will review this month.
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