A Beautiful End To An Era

Rating: 10/10 (29 November 2019)

The appeal and glamour of the gangster lifestyle evaporate in The Irishman as Scorsese washes his hands of the genre. This truly felt like a bookend to the gangster films as we've come to love from director Martin Scorsese and it ended up being one of his best. The fact that some theatres wouldn't play it because it is a Netflix streaming film is a travesty to filmmaking. You would think they would have learned from Blockbuster's mistake, but here we are once again.
The Irishman is about former mafia hitman Frank Sheeran played by Robert De Niro and the disappearance of Al Pacino's Jimmy Hoffa. This is a movie in which Scorsese doesn't sugar coat anything; showing how this life can affect your family and your livelihood provided you live long enough to die of old age.
The strongest performance comes from Joe Pesci, who was talked into coming out of retirement just to do this film and for someone who hasn't acted in over a decade; he eases back into the craft like a fine wine. If he doesn't score a Best Supporting Actor award, why are we even having the ceremony? It also amazes me that the only scene between Joe Pesci and Al Pacino was the one and seemingly only scene the two will have shared in their legendary careers.
I felt the same way I felt the first time I watch Goodfellas while watching The Irishman and that is one of my all-time top five films and in a way, this is an anti-Goodfellas film. At a staggering three and a half hours, I only looked at the clock once with a well-paced storyline that you have to praise Editor Thelma Schoonmaker for. While we're on the subject of post-production, the de-aging technology was incredibly implemented.
One scene that stood out to me was of Frank in the war; discussing how the soldiers would dig their graves unwilling to accept their fate as if they were somehow going to escape death. This foreshadows the entire story of Jimmy Hoffa. He is a man who we watch continually dig his grave deeper and deeper while continuing to believe he'd escape death. I mean even when he walks into the empty house and is standing on the plastic wrap; he is standing in his actual grave and still tries to escape. This particular scene reminded me a lot of Joe Pesci's scene in Goodfellas as he walks into the empty room, however, he immediately recognizes and accepts his fate.
The final half-hour was unexpected and hits you like a ton of bricks. It was one of the only times I watch a movie and felt fearful about growing old. This is a man whose friends have all died before him and his family wants nothing to do with him as he sits as a decrepit man stripped of any power, alone as it nears Christmas day. When his nurse admits she's never heard of Jimmy Hoffa, it seems as though all the power and money, in the end, wasn't worth it while Frank struggles with mortality as he reflects on his life.
These are actors I love in a film genre that I came to love them in most likely their final performance together and I couldn't be happier. This truly was a beautiful and incredible film and by far the best film I've seen in 2019. As Dr. Seuss said, "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."