Lengthy but well-made mob-biopic

Rating: 8/10 (7 December 2019)

Epic wiseguy drama from director Martin Scorsese follows Irish teamster and hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro) from his introduction to mob boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci,) to his waning days in a nursing home, including the years he worked with legendary Teamster Union boss Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). The film is layed out in a multi-layered flashback format, with the story being told by an elderly, wheel-chair bound Sheeran reminiscing in a nursing home in the early 2000s, and 'flash-backed' by a middle-aged Sheenan on the road to a meeting in Detroit with Bufalino and their wives in 1975. The 'reverse aging' is pretty good although De Nero looks more than 30 years old when he first hooks up with the mob in 1950. Peschi is unusually understated and quite good as Bufalino, and DeNiro is fine playing his standard mobbed-up tough guy role, but Pacino is a bit over-the-top as a gripey Hoffa and seems to deliver most of his lines at least twice (perhaps the intent was to make Hoffa an irritating guy). Scorsese perennial Harvey Keitel shows up as ill-fated Philly boss Angelo Bruno and the rest of the cast, especially those playing Sheeran's family, are quite good. The story is interesting and the script, while typical of the genre (lots of swearing and tough-guy posturing), is fine. The film does a nice job evoking the decades over which it takes place, both in visual cues and by Scorsese's trademark pop-music soundtrack, and overall, makes for a entertaining mob-based history lesson. The 209 minute run-time seems a bit long for the story and there are a number of scenes that could have been shortened or deleted (IMO, but I may have missed their significance). One contrast to most of Scorsese's films (and the genre in general): the story of 'The Irishman' plays through to the very end, with top mob-bosses finally side-lined, and ultimately 'whacked', by infirmity and old age. There's a great scene towards the end of the film in which an exasperated FBI agent tries to convince the elderly Sheeran 'to talk' by pointing out that there is no one left to protect.