An old man gangster movie just feels old...

Rating: 5/10 (18 January 2020)

With all of its violent pageantry, watching a Scorsese film always feels like there's something larger at stake, but The Irishman just felt insincere to this Scorsese standard; the B-Side of Scorsese. I'm not sure what we can get out of The Irishman that we haven't already seen before, and at 3 and a half hours, it's quite the chore to find the answer to that question. A movie centered around an "Irishman" who couldn't feel less Irish as the least interesting of the three main characters. Al, Bobby and Joe turn in matter-of-fact performances that rest on their most easily recognized mannerisms; Joe handing in the clearest attempt at something new. Would it have been a worse movie to get guys in there who can play their age for 70% of the movie? There are no memorables here, as a movie about old men gangsters just comes across as an old man gangster movie. As the "Irishman" says, "It is what it is."