The Irishman released today on Netflix and after a healthy three and half hour viewing I’m still astonished. Martin Scorsese’s latest mob film is a back and forth between emotion and awe. Robert DeNiro’s performance is incredible, to say the least, portraying himself throughout the span of a lifetime.
When viewers see the long runtime it may dissuade some, but it is not really a film, it’s more of a miniseries wrapped up into one view. We are taken through several decades of a story, seeing flashbacks, hearing several sides of the same story and witnessing some incredible performances that we’ll get into.
If you haven’t watched The Irishman yet, this will contain spoilers, so consider yourself warned!
Performances
It was quite the news when it was announced the Martin Scorsese was directing a new film with acting titans Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci. I think we can all agree with how fantastic DeNiro was in his performance. He acted through decades of the protagonist’s life and brought human nature to the killer which was amazing and frightening.
Pacino turned in a really great performance as the charismatic union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Pacino has become something of a meme of his former self, but this was a great comeback for the Serpico actor and personally I was afraid of an overacting performance, but really it’s generally subdued and human.
Pesci as Bufalino was a delight to see. It has been some years since we had seen Pesci on-screen and he and DeNiro are electric together. You really believed everything Pesci said in the film and could feel the respect from the characters inside.
Some of the notable performances aside from the legends I wanted to talk about were Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, and Jack Huston. Romano puts in his best performance since his tenure in Parenthood, as the camera shop owner with undiagnosed Asberger’s disease. When I first saw him in it, I couldn’t believe how great he really was. Romano immediately triggers memories of his self-titled show, which is great, but this brings him to another level. He shines through as Bill Bufalino.
Bobby Cannavale, I’ve always been a fan of but never felt like he got to show off his abilities. From being the tough-talking jerk in Paul Blart to the stepdad in Ant-Man I just wanted more as I saw in Boardwalk Empire, and between this and Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn, I think we’ve seen his full potential.
Lastly, I just wanted to mention Jack Huston as Robert Kennedy. I felt like I had seen him before but couldn’t place him. He fell right into the role and did what I thought was a very impressionable job for a small amount of screentime.
I was upset we didn’t get more Harvey Keitel, Jesse Plemons or Anna Paquin! Keitel has been with Scorsese since Mean Streets and I just wanted to see more of the Angelo Bruno mob boss.
Jesse Plemons did a great job with his smaller role as well, playing a memorable role as Hoffa’s step-son Chuckie. Plemons you probably remember as Todd from Breaking Bad. I just thought with such a long runtime we could see more of these great actors as well.
It was also a bummer that Anna Paquin was in this! Sort of! She was on screen but didn’t do or say much. This is what I guess the character was there for, to ignore her father Frank, but come on! Use her!
Simple Story, Really
When you first sit down to watch The Irishman, as I mentioned the runtime is a bit long, but why the end you feel like you’ve lived a lifetime. At first, it was a bit overwhelming for me to be honest. There were many names and characters that they threw at you before we meet the man himself, Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) and what it really boils down to is a story of loyalty. One man is torn apart from two different sides. He has to make a decision in the end to pick, and that is the soul of The Irishman.
Through The Decades (CGI Oh-My!)
This is a story the spans several decades as we follow Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran. We begin in a car ride, next to Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci). Where we are headed we’re not sure yet, but our first flashback comes as they stop outside a small gas station on the highway.
Frank recalls the first time he met Russell, his truck has broken down and he was attempting to fix it when Russ came up to offer his assistance. After a few tests of things, he identifies the problem and get’s Frank back on the road to make his delivery.
We find out Frank was a delivery driver for frozen meat, a regular run of the mill blue-collar worker. Working to makes ends meet for his family. Needing to make a few extra bucks for himself, he ends up stealing a truck’s worth of meat to sell to Felix ‘Skinny Razor’ DiTullio (Bobby Cannavale), a local mobster.
It’s through this interaction that Frank winds up in some heat for “allegedly” stealing the meat from the truck. He acts and plays it off as if someone didn’t load the truck or something. He’s not at fault, and it’s through his new lawyer, Bill Bufalino (Ray Romano) that he is able to get off scot-free.
To celebrate his victory, Bill takes him to his cousin’s place for a drink. It’s at this moment that Frank and Russell are reunited. Bill introduces the two and Frank brings up the fact that Russell helped him with his truck a few months ago.
In The Mob Now
After some bread and wine, Russell takes a shine to Frank. Frank was in World War II, in Italy. From this, he learned to speak Italian and this impresses Russell. It’s in this next flashback we see some more of the incredible CGI in this film. We see Robert DeNiro de-aged to his twenties, in the war. It’s a brief scene and its purpose is to show us Frank has no problem killing people but the CGI is incredible, it really feels like we’re looking at a twenties something Robert DeNiro.
Russell and Frank form a tight bond, and Russell begins slipping Frank some illegal work, which begins growing. Before long Frank is completing hits for Russell and tossing his weapons over a bridge. It’s his dedication and loyalty to Russell that gets him a phone call with none other than Jimmy Hoffa in Chicago. There’s a great exchange between Pacino’s Hoffa and DeNiro’s Frank on a telephone, the first time they ‘meet’. Within a day, Frank is on his way to Chicago to meet and do some work for Hoffa.
Now, in his time away from working as a handler/bodyguard for Hoffa they, of course, form a tight bond. It’s these two relationships, Frank between Hoffa and Bufalino that is the centerpiece to everything that happens in the film.
The Choice
At about the two and half-hour mark, Frank finds himself with a decision. After Hoffa is away for four years, he has lost his control over his union and wants to fight for it back. Things have changed though, and a lot of people are happy with the way it is. It’s Hoffa’s own pride that eventually takes him down. He talks about how he’s not going to quit, it’s his! His, and only his. He wants control of his union again. The Bufalino crime family wants to give Frank the chance to try to turn him around, live in peace in his old age and enjoy his grandchildren. His foolish pride says otherwise.
In a heart-wrenching decision, Frank has to choose to kill Hoffa himself or sit back while Russell’s syndicate does it.
Playing With History
The Irishman paints an interesting image, to say the least. Based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt in which Frank Sheeran reportedly told him his life story in 2003 before dying from cancer.
According to the book and Sheeran’s word, after he returned home from the war he was struggling to make ends meet and supposedly started doing jobs as hired muscle for Bufalino, even taking credit for the killing of Joey Gallo, a prominent member of the Colombo crime family. Though to this day, it’s still considered “unsolved”.
The next big bombshell from Sheeran was that he did, in fact, kill Jimmy Hoffa. Just as in the film, he detailed that he drove up to the house in Detroit with two associates and shot Hoffa in the back of the head.
According to Esquire, “In August, Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School, wrote an essay for Slate that claims Sheeran fabricated a large portion of what he disclosed in his interviews with Brandt. This includes the Joey Gallo murder, which Goldsmith says is still technically unsolved (no one was arrested or charged in the killing), as well as the Hoffa confession. Considering the long, wild history of end-of-life Hoffa accounts, Sheeran’s story could easily be not totally accurate, as Goldsmith supposes that a different Hoffa enforcer, Salvatore Briguglio, was the one who was directly involved in the killing.”
Closing
This is not a great film, it’s an incredible journey as cliche as it may sound. Everyone’s performance is really what gives this film it’s shine. The incredible sets and cars would seem lifeless without Scorsese’s direction.
It’s not hard to see why it’s ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB are through the roof. It is a callback to mobster films like A Bronx Tale and Goodfellas. I would give this film a 10 out of 10 if I were rating it here and now.
