Geriatric Goodfellas

Rating: 6/10 (24 December 2019)

Martin Scorsese has hinted that The Irishman could be his final directorial shot. That's too bad, given that modern graphics algorithms and high-speed computing have provided auteurs the fascinating ability to add age or induce youth into characters, perhaps leading to the ultimate goal of eliminating the picky and demanding actors in their entirety.
The Irishman could have been called Geriatric Goodfellas, and a somber tone wafts throughout as time, place, and situation are emphasized over bloody action violence. There's still a romanticizing mood about organized crime with the added touch of international intrigue because the mobsters hate Fidel Castro so much they seemingly would do anything to repatriate their Havanese casinos, even participate in driving trucks with guns to Miami for the Bay of Pigs debacle.
Was Jimmy Hoffa so pedantic and stupid, so infatuated with leading the Teamsters, that his closest Irish friend could not convince him to keep his yapping mouth shut, that he could be gotten to, that his house could be painted? The final 90 minutes are filled with this bombastic incredulity. The first 120 minutes are filled with Scorsese-isms, as if the director was worried the audience would forget somewhere in the third hour exactly who is the auteur of this road trip to Detroit.
It is nice to see Joe Pesci in a role that does not require anger, showing much more subtle attributes. It is frustrating to watch Robert De Niro paint by numbers in a role that never looks too introspectively at his character's motivations. Instead, Frank Sheeran's life is depicted as one job, one stop, and on to the next.