In the 1950s, truck driver Frank Sheeran gets involved with Russell Bufalino and his Pennsylvania crime family. As Sheeran climbs the ranks to become a top hitman, he also goes to work for Jimmy Hoffa -- a powerful Teamster tied to organized crime.
The Irishman has been a highly anticipated film this year, mostly thanks to the amount of trouble that Martin Scorsese has had in getting it made and distributed. It has been the film that has garnered the most attention, as it failed to get funding from any of the usual studios, forcing Scorsese to go to Netflix. This move led to most cinema franchises refusing to screen the film unless Netflix gave them 90 days exclusivity before it went live with the streaming giant. The battle rages on between Netflix and traditional cinema practices, and it looks as though Netflix is coming out on top.
The Irishman has a huge ensemble cast, including Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romano, Stephen Graham, Kathrine Narducci, J.C. MacKenzie, Anna Paquin, and Jesse Plemons. Such an extensive cast would usually run the risk of not giving the cast enough time to shine, but with a runtime just shy of three and a half hours, there is plenty of time for all.
Based on Charles Brandt’s 2004 non-fictional narrative, I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran and Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa, The Irishman is somewhat a biopic. Taking place of several years (decades, even) the film requires extensive digital ageing and de-ageing as recasting the roles of their younger selves is difficult to do on actors as well-known as these.
The de-ageing was a cause for concern, considering the mixed results that Will Smith's Gemini Man attained. With a straight cut from older De Niro to a younger De Niro, the clear difference in appearance draws your eyes to it, but it only takes a few scenes before you forget about the CGI entirely. It is done so cleanly that it isn't until you reach senior citizen De Niro that you realise at some point, we bypassed current day Robert De Niro without CGI and didn't even notice. One thing that the de-ageing process was unable to successfully hide, is the physical movements of the body. There are a couple of scenes where the younger-looking actors are in physical situations but still move like an older person.
The plot is surprisingly light, considering the length of the film, but the focus of The Irishman is not so much on the story, but on exploring the characters themselves. As such, a lot of the film involves our character static in a room talking, or conversely not talking. There is a fair amount of dead space in the film--which those expecting an action-packed thriller will have a tendency to skip through--but allow the time for events to sink in and build-up dramatic tension. It is this slower pacing that will have better results with its audience if watched on the big screen, without the opportunity for distractions. Viewing it at home, one will likely find themselves being pulled away during the slower moments.
For the most part, the pacing is well-done. There are two to three slow patches that can seem to drag a little due to the weaker narrative direction. but outside of that, the events and tense dramatic dialogue keep you hooked in and time flies by an hour at a time.
The acting performances were brilliant. It's not often you get such big names in the acting industry that are still able to disappear into their roles, but Pesci, De Niro, and Pacino all do just that. Pacino does go full-Pacino, right from his first scenes, yelling and pointing, whilst Pesci is the complete opposite, calm, quiet, and cold. De Niro is the standout performance with a very reserved display, whose compassion and sense of morals become slowly twisted. Admittedly, the women do have an understated role in the film, Anna Paquin having less than ten words of dialogue in the entire film. That isn't to say that women have no significance. In fact, Paquin's character Peggy forms an integral ethical compass for De Niro's transition as Frank Sheeran. Her acting performance is not to be summed up by her dialogue alone. It is the silence, movements, and facial expressions of Paquin (and Lucy Gallina, who plays young Peggy) that have a more significant impact.
The Irishman is a collection of lengthy character studies of Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino), Russell Bufalino (Pesci), and Frank Sheeran (De Niro). Considering its runtime of 209 minutes, the pacing is well managed. Why nobody but Netflix would fund this, is a mystery, but I for one, am glad that they did.