A Sombre Tale

Rating: 8/10 (28 January 2020)

This is Scorcese's anti-mob film.
The last 40 minutes of The Irishman put everything up until then into a new light. Suddenly everything makes sense and the film becomes a heartbreaking and poignant epilogue to gangster culture and its violent history.
Speaking of violence, the Irishman is violent but in no way glorified (nor is it in any of his other films)... in fact it's quite the opposite. The violence here is quick, brutal, cold and almost cowardly, where respect can become naivety and get you killed.
It's this respect that Scorcese is more interested in depicting; the familial bond these gangsters have with one another and the respect they have for each other.
This is a sombre tale of regret and broken families, isolation and loneliness, a violent tale of power and betrayal, and overall a tale of powerful men that gain strength through each other, and the respect of others.
That said, my main criticism is that yes, it is indeed too long. That's not to suggest that the film doesn't earn its runtime, like I said the last 40 minutes really do hit hard.
It's in those last 40 minutes where the lack of a strong female presence throughout the film is justified and actually benefits the message it's trying to send. Still, I think it was a missed opportunity not have a stronger female role in the film.
My other issue would be the CGI... whilst it is fantastic, there some scenes where the elderly bodies of the actors with young heads really drew me out of the immersion as it just looked bizarre.
Overall The Irishman is a long and rather downbeat story with a lot to say but only at the end... the plot isn't anything remarkable and has similarities to Scorsese's previous films but stick with it to the end and its guaranteed to have you thinking for a while afterward.