Not Exactly A Hit, Man

Rating: 8/10 (30 December 2019)

Giving this film a wide release at Thanksgiving time makes total sense. This should never have been in theaters in the first place. It uses breakneck pacing to connect three and a half hours of almost all dialogue into a quick watch. Provided you're at home. "The Irishman" is the best television movie you'll ever see. It's casually perfect. Nothing feels like a set, its re-creations feel like memory, and every performance is deeply natural. But it bears no fire of genius, as "Goodfellas" did. And De Niro is not pushing himself via strenuous method, as he did in "Taxi Driver". He's going for inscrutable. Emotionless. You can't fault him per se, as it's the direction. It's the character. But it says something that Todd Phillips was able to get *so* much more out of him in "Joker". That was really De Niro's 2019 star turn. Joe Pesci also has none of his unstable menace. Just gravitas, and a weird transformation into Steve Buscemi (which is neither here nor there -- I just think it's funny.) The women and girls in this movie have stories, yet those are all represented as a silent struggle, meaning almost no dialogue. Just meaningful glances. I suspect Scorsese considers it territory he doesn't have a right to explore. Maybe it'll be in the next one, as this seems to be part of a series. (It seems the full title is "The Irishman: I Heard You Paint Houses".) Or else it wasn't important enough for him. But it's very strange that the film keeps ignoring the only good characters -- with corresponding actors who can actually emote -- and focusing instead on the history of the drunk uncles. Sure, that history touches on some very interesting things, but in the end Scorsese is still exploring male characters that have gone beyond redemption, which adds up to three and a half hours of caring about someone who gives us little reason to. When I think back, I'm not sure that his films have ever brought me to tears. Which, play to your strengths, but there's been so many amazing movies in the last few years. Flat-out amazing. It's a little boring now to just be perfect. Even TV can do that.