Enough Scorsese leftovers to give you agita

Rating: 5/10 (27 November 2019)

Stylish, empty and overlong Martin Scorsese's Irishman is one long conversation featuring an exhausted looking Robert DiNero, a frail Joe Pesce and an over the top Al Pacino in a bad toupee. It's like watching the Marx Bros. in Go West, rusty ghosts of the past.
The Irishman follows the career of close Jimmy Hoffa confidant and mobbed up hitman Frank Sheehan. Tied in with some of the greatest hits Scorsese provides a score card of casualties to buttress his film with historical fact and with snippets borrowed from the usual suspects, MeanStreets, Taxi Driver, Good Fellas, Casino. It is a veritable senior citizen version of Good Fellas.
DiNero has not been able to carry a two hour film in twenty years and here we are asked to endure over three with a doughy and somewhat distorted Bobby looking old from the outset, his movements creaky, his delivery half hearted. A scene where he beats a grocer takes on an almost laughable WWE look as he huffs and puffs through some rage of yesteryear. Pacino starts well but wears thin. You just look at Joe Pesce and worry about his health. The wives wear loud clothes are vapid and loyal. The only energized and enthusiastic performance is delivered by Bo Dietl as union flunky Joe Glimco.
Scorsese does apply lipstick on this hippo with a certain flair as his camera sweeps in on crane shots and he tracks more than Max Ophuls employing an excess of wide angle framing in order to showcase his nostalgic recreation while employing his signature aid of pop music and Fellini like mugs. It all leads however to DiNero's dense monotone narration and one close up after the next of tired old men in tough guy conversation a decade or two past their prime as actors. The Irishman is one stale bore.