It is what it is

Rating: 10/10 (30 November 2019)

The Irishman (2019) - It is what it is - a masterpiece of cinema. It's Scorsese's brilliant direction, choice of subject, pure distilled camera angles, and the pure method-driven performance given by the three titans of cinema - DeNiro, Pesci and Pacino. I had a silly smile on my face all through the film as I watched the greats effortlessly talk to each other portraying dangerous (and larger than life) characters from a tumultuous part of American history, people who were sworn to their own personal causes, leading a power-driven life in a society undergoing massive changes.
History is present throughout the film, in news clippings, snapshots, snippets of television news and you hear about the Kennedys, Cuba, Las Vegas, but you realize that you are watching a secret history in the film itself - a undercurrent that was running parallel and controlled by shadowy "kingmakers" or "king killers" as they influenced society, the country, and by extension, the world.
It's interesting to note that this is a layered chronological film that is disruptive, but also smooth as silk in Scorsese's hands.
It is a "hidden" film - on the one hand, you have the history that we have all read about, then you turn a dark corner with the mysterious assassinations of the Kennedys, and the mysterious disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa - and all of this happening while the USA was engaged in a disastrous war in Vietnam. Then, you see an old Frank Sheeran recollecting and narrating a secret history of what "really" happened, which is curiously interesting as well, because the listener is never shown - who is Frank talking to?
As the audience, we are also hidden, secret viewers to a secret history. And as we delve deeper, we go into the recesses of Frank's memory as he saw it and experienced it, and within it, we see and hear rumblings of a further past in Sheeran's life in the war, how he followed orders to "hurry up", how the Kennedy killing was a secret mob hit, leading us to Hoffa's death later in the film.
Finally, it is Scorsese himself, who remains hidden, behind the camera, directing the history from the viewpoint of a book (I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt), which in itself is a view of a writer. There are multiple other instances of "secrets" in this film - both literal and metaphorical that I am not including here, but in all honesty, this film is like a dark Matryoshka doll, "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma", but essentially offering a possible key to some of the greatest mysteries and conspiracies in the world.
It is also interesting to see how Scorsese has mixed genres like a masterclass chef - The Irishman is a road movie, a mafia movie, a drama, an action film, a thriller, historical fiction, but most importantly, it is epic.
Finally, on the cast, no amount of praise will do justice to DeNiro, Pesci and Pacino. They are exemplars of the craft, living industry standards, and with Scorsese at the helm, this was a match made in heaven.
Thank you sirs for making this film.