Rico's Thoughts - The Irishman
The moment The Irishman has been building to finally arrives. We see the coronation of Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro), the title character who has made his way up the ranks in the Italian mob. He’s an outsider, the lens through which the audience peers into the world of political machinations, backroom deals, and mob hits. It feels familiar to us—an itch of nostalgia that settles into your mind and is alleviated by familiar faces in familiar situations. It’s not enough to leave a permanent satisfaction, but “it is what it is.”
Martin Scorsese has taken us there before. You can see it in the two movies that most people will reference when talking about The Irishman, which are Goodfellas and Casino. Besides the fact that all three films share the thread of criminal activity, the most significant connection is the reunion of DeNiro, Scorsese, and Joe Pesci. But that’s where the similarities stop and comparisons become insulting.
The Irishman is an adaptation of Charles Brandt’s book I Heard You Paint Houses, which is a code phrase for carrying out a hit job. The movie follows Sheeran as he makes his way from a truck driver delivering meat throughout Pennsylvania to the right-hand man to Russell Bufalino (Pesci), the head of the Pennsylvania mafia. Sheeran is good at what he does: he’s reserved and loyal. He doesn’t ask questions. He is always ready to do the bidding of those above him, which leads him to Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), the head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Chicago. Sheeran is sent to help Hoffa control the union, either by making deals or by force. Everything is working for Hoffa until he is incarcerated for fraud.
A lot has been said of the film’s 209-minute runtime. A common complaint is the movie’s length—a claim that lives in the same world where people binge a whole season of television in one sitting. There is nothing wrong with a movie that carries a more than 3-hour runtime... when it is warranted. The Irishman has few moments that make the hefty runtime worth it. As far as performances go, none of the actors are at the top of their game, but they are making a better effort than in recent movies.
Pacino’s Hoffa is a short-tempered, dismissive jilted figure, always looking at how other people comport themselves without recognizing how his actions affect others. Most of the line readings are a hair short from his performance in A Scent of A Woman, minus the “hooahs.” DeNiro is continuously referred to as “kid,” although he looks like the older brother to everyone he engages. It does not help that we have such an unreliable narrator (a lot of Sheeran’s real-life talks have been challenged and debunked as embellishments of the truth). Still, DeNiro doesn’t give an empathetic performance. He is the audience surrogate, but it never feels like we’re entrenched in the details. We, as an audience, are always kept at arm’ s length away from being truly immersed in the story.
Highlights include Pesci’s understated performance of the man in charge of everything. He’s not brash and loud like in his previous Scorsese appearances, but he demonstrates a control that allows him to be the standout among the trio. Faces pop in and out, sometimes in silly prosthetics like Bobby Cannavale, or Sebastian Maniscalco’s hothead version of Joey Gallo, a.k.a. “Joey the Blonde.” We get appearances from Jesse Plemons as Hoffa’s son, Ray Romano as Bill Bufalino, lawyer to almost all of the characters, and Anna Paquin as Sheeran’s daughter Peggy. Most of the time, this stacked cast of characters don’t have much to do. Sometimes they are in a scene so briefly that you blink and miss them. Why pay for the name when we don’t even see the face?
The de-aging technology is an issue. DeNiro takes the brunt of the de-aging, as he is made to resemble a man in his late 20s? Mid 30s? I have these lingering questions because the movie isn’t clear about how old everyone is unless you look it up online. DeNiro’s face may look younger, but his mannerisms do not lie. Will this technology get any better? Of course, it will, even if it feels like a cheap trick.
Reunions can be fun for a little while until they’re not. You are excited about seeing someone you feel close to, a person who has brought you joy in the past. You know what they’ve been up to and what they are currently doing. It seems exciting, but there comes a point when the reunion is over, and it’s time to say goodbye. I reached the goodbye point after, probably, the sixth conversation Sheeran has with Hoffa about how his actions could lead to repercussions. In what should be the climatic moment of a film that has given itself such grand weight, I looked at my watch and there was still another hour left in the movie.
3/5 Stars