“I heard you paint houses.” - Jimmy Hoffa
The Irishman is directed by Martin Scorsese, and stars Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, Jesse Plemons, and Harvey Keitel. It tells the story of the murder of Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino) through the eyes of mafia hitman Frank Sheeran (De Niro.)
This film has gotten a ton of hype, and for very good reasons. This is a film starring legends, about legends, directed by Scorsese, who is about as legendary as filmmakers get. It’s also a film that does almost everything right. This is a film that movie buffs everywhere will be able to appreciate, and I feel like it could very well go down in history as one of the all time great mob movies.
I really appreciate many things about The Irishman, and I think it’s an incredibly unique movie that people will be able to watch and get many different things out of. The shot composition is very careful, and there are many shots that foreshadow events that happen later on. The visual aspects of the film are jaw-dropping, and you can tell that everyone who worked on the visual elements was really trying. From cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto to editor Thelma Schoonmaker, you really get the sense that everyone knew what they were doing, and brought Scorsese’s vision to life.
Although the visual elements are beautiful, the same can be said for the audio elements. Scorsese throws in some incredible music that fits with the ever-changing time periods in which the movie is set, but also gets a ton of use out of the awesome and very Italian-sounding score written by Robbie Robertson. Although I have only seen the film once, I vividly remember the music, and the scenes that certain songs corresponded with.
As with almost all of his other films, Scorsese uses silence just as effectively as his use of music. He has always had a way of contrasting dead silence with wonderful music to great effect, and The Irishman is no different in that regard. The silence in the film is just as intense as the music, and especially in the final moments. The complete lack of music towards the end is chilling, and gives a dreadful sense of emptiness and loneliness that comes with old age.
The acting is truly masterful, and is some of the best work I’ve seen in years from De Niro, Pesci, and Pacino. Pacino is very loud, and yells a lot in the film, whereas De Niro and Pesci are both very quiet and pensive. All of the supporting actors are extremely impressive as well. There are also some really cool cameos in the movie, my favorite of all of them being a scene involving famed New York rapper Action Bronson as a coffin salesman.
Two of the most talked about aspects of The Irishman are its length, and the de-aging effects used on the actors. I barely even noticed the de-aging, and thought that it was extremely convincing and impressive. As for the length, the film is just one minute shy of being three and a half hours long, and for the most part, it doesn’t feel nearly as long as it actually is. However, there were a couple of scenes towards the middle that dragged for just a tad bit longer than they should have, and that is my one issue with the film. Overall though, The Irishman is a film that I could easily see myself rewatching at least a couple more times, and it’s easily the best mafia movie that’s come out in the past few years.
Rating: R
Grade: A-
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