The Irishman: A Review
Martin Scorsese has made his grand return to the gangster epic, with his 2019 picture, The Irishman, accompanied by a timeless yet ageing cast of Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and of course his other half, Robert DeNiro. However, the question rises, have these colossal pillars of the film industry finally succumbed to the winds of time? Can they still achieve the sublime quality that we know they are capable of? Is the Irishman a worthy entry in Martin Scorsese’s glamorous filmography?
The Irishman revolves around protagonist Frank Sheeran(DeNiro), and in typical Scorsese style, his journey from adulthood to nigh on death. The film juggles multiple different timelines at once, which coincide with each other at different parts of the story, the main one being the first half of Sheeran’s life in the film, narrated by his much older self. He entails how he rose from a truck driver for a meat company to one of the most respected members of the Philadelphian mafia in the film’s three and a half hour run-time, Scorsese’s longest to date. The 2nd act of the film concentrates more closely on Frank’s relationship as the second hand man to passionate unionist Jimmy Hoffa(Pacino). Throughout this retelling, at natural plot pivots the attention switches to older Frank who is driving Russell Bufalino (Pesci), his longtime friend to a wedding.The 3rd act takes place after the drive to the wedding and sees the deterioration of the once great Philadelphian mafia mobsters.
Acting-wise, as expected the film is solid, these actors are very experienced and provide believable characters. The more emotive and explosive scenes are left to Pacino, given the passionate nature of his character Jimmy Hoffa. Unfortunately, this leaves the other characters with less variation, for example Frank is mostly monotone except for a few moments where he is mentally challenged by his superiors. The dialogue was very well written for the most part, Pacino and DeNiro maintain high quality deliverance, whereas it would have been interesting to see characters like Angelo Bruno (Harvey Keitel) get more coverage, which may have helped with world-building and development. The main discussion point when it came to performance was the anti-ageing technology on the cast, and for the most part it was not very noticeable and slick, however, especially when young Frank had a close up of any sort, you could tell that it did not look right. Yet, it was mostly a positive result, despite the few moments where there were clear faults. Another main point of discussion is the pace. The film is very slow, and takes its sweet time to characterise and build up towards the climax, as expected of a film clocking at about three and a half hours. It would be comparable to a film that had Casino and 2001: A Space Odyssey for parents. Scorsese abandons the crisp, brusque nature of GoodFellas and slows everything down, no major violence, no quick speaking. This approach makes The Irishman unique, as the slow dissection of the plot opened up a new form of engagement. Since everything was taken so slowly it forced the viewer to pay attention to the finer details, like how well shot the film is, and the contrasting, well-built set pieces. On the contrary however, the film could have been shortened and the impact would have been minimal. Some scenes were not necessarily filler, but dialogue wise aspects could definitely have been shortened.
In conclusion, The Irishman is a great watch, and whilst Scorsese will never equate to his glory days, he is still making great films and this is a poignant example. Taking a different approach to his tried and tested formula, Scorsese proves he can still cut at the top level and his career is still very much alive.
Image from © Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0]
