The Irishman Movie Review

You know that line in the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” that says they’d just settled their brains for a long winter’s nap? That’s how I felt when I first saw the run time for The Irishman. 3.5 hours? No thank you. When I finally decided to watch it, I felt like the characters in the poem: settling in for a long winter’s movie. A very violent, long winter’s movie.

The Irishman has been much speculated about and had received a lot of pre-release hype. Of course most of this is because of the director, Martin Scorsese, and this being his magnum opus. He has touted this as the film of his career, the masterpiece he has toiled for years to create. That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself and perhaps that can explain why the movie is so. damn. long.

However, I must admit that despite the long run time I thoroughly enjoyed The Irishman. As far as gangster movies go, this one is quite good. It is based on a 2004 book called I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt. The main character is Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) who gets caught up in the mob and becomes a reliable hit man. De Niro plays a young Sheeran and an incredibly old Sheeran. The CGI helps, but only just so. The problem with using CGI is that although the faces can be transformed into more youthful features, the body still lags. There are several scenes where I could tell old Bob was just that — old. He does his best and as per usual his best is quite fantastic. He is compelling and incredibly believable as a mob hitman.

However, he was a bit outshined by his castmates. Joe Pesci’s take on Russell Bufalino was one of my favorite performances. He was quietly dominant and I think he deserves more buzz. But for me, the best performance was Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa. He had such a range of emotions on display and all of my favorite scenes featured Pacino in a central role.

There are a lot of characters to remember. At hour two, we were still being introduced to new characters. Scorsese makes the choice to highlight who the real people are and to inform us of how they are killed. I appreciated that bit of history and insight. It also lent itself well to showcasing how brutal the mob was (is?) and the level of seriousness you should have while watching the movie. This one has a lot of violence. The hits are shown in all of their gore. Even when I knew a hit was coming, it still rattled me when the gun would go off. I tip my cap to Scorsese for accomplishing that feat.

My only critique is that I feel I would have liked this more as a limited series, rather than a movie. We could have delved into some of the characters more and I probably would have felt more of a connection to them than I did here. But alas, Scorsese wanted an epic tale to be watched all in one sitting. The Irishman is certainly epic, but didn’t have the same intense pulse as some of Scorsese’s other movies.

Movie or Film: Film
You’ll like this film if:
1. You like movies about the Mob
2. You like violence
3. You can sit for 3.5 hours and not get bored