It felt like homework

Rating: 5/10 (8 December 2019)

Sometimes you can't go home again. With "The Irishman" director Martin Scorsese takes one too many trips to the mafia well. Watching this movie often feels like you're watching a summer reunion tour of a bunch of old rockers but not nearly as fun. "The Irishman" does have some nice moments but it goes on forever. It needed some serious script editing. It often feels like Scorsese and company were picking up scraps from other (better) gangster movies. As far as the performances go, they weren't so hot. Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci all have a couple of good moments but they also seem to be on auto-pilot much of the time. As far the CGI goes, De Niro looked more ill than young in those scenes. Netflix claims that they spent zillions on this production but it doesn't look like it. It has the cheap look of a made-for-tv movie (which is what it is). At the end of the day, "The Irishman" isn't that good. It ends up dragging down the batting average of all the talent involved. Dishonorable mention: the casting of church basher Jonathan Morris as the nursing home priest.