The stuff Scorsesian greatness is made off...

Rating: 10/10 (27 November 2019)

"In the Still of the Night" is playing as the ending credits are rolling; I can't process my thoughts to express how beautiful "The Irishman" was. True I'm a Scorsese, Pacino and De Niro fan, a gangster movie buff too but it sincerely doesn't take these predispositions to appreciate the film.
Its historical value is undeniable. In fact, "The Irishman" is a fine companion piece to movies like "Nixon", JFK", the original "Hoffa" of course and Scorsese's gangster biopics and you got to credit Hollywood directors like Oliver Stone and Scorsese to have enlightened us about the intricacies of the political underworld and their connections with the mob during the second half of the last century. And "The Irishman" came to fill a few blanks about Hoffa's disappearance with a little detour through JFK's election and elements barely suggested in Hyman Roth's speech in "The Godfather Part II" (hey, another film starring Al and Bobby).
Still, "The Irishman" is also the spiritual successor of gangster or mob-related biography classics that made Scorsese's legend, decade by decade, from "Mean Streets" to "Raging Bull", from "Goodfellas" and "Casino" to the Best Picture winner "The Departed" in 2006 though (for me) the closest he ever came to his stylish and turbulent creativity was "The Wolf of Wall Street". It was a close call but Scorsese had a last trick under his sleeve for the 2010s, making a last but instant classic. And "last" is the word and that's why I was submerged by bittersweet feelings when the film ended.
Scorsese accomplished the miracle to reunite again false-acting-rivals but real-pals-in-life Pacino and De Niro, he also got Pesci here (who's extraordinary) and hell, he even got Harvey Keitel, the star of his directorial debut. There's a sense of coming full circle with "The Irishman" as the film isn't just about but it IS the end of an era, for we might never see these actors together again. But it was worth it. No trailer, no teaser could ever do justice to how great and extremely nuanced this film is, not even that revie.. And I guess it took time for Scorsese to get back to his roots because he needed it to gain some wisdom, something subtler than maturity.
Scorsese understood that style is one thing, but when we get an ordinary story but well-played and well-written characters, their arcs is the best storyteller. Still, "The Irishman" is full of Scorsesian archetypes, the narration: less an artistic license but a necessary device to insert vital information so we keep track on who's-who, the music is full of melancholic romantic ballades and generic doo-bah songs, the editing takes us back and forth from a decade to another... and we never feel dizzy, there's just something solid and smooth in the way the story goes. And it doesn't take more than one viewing to get the big picture.
The film tells the story of a hitman named Frank Sheeran, a steak truck driver who meets Russell Buffalino (Joe Pesci), and later answering phone calls starting with one of the most memorable lines of 2019, the title of Charles Brandt's original biography actually, "I heard you paint houses" and I felt stupid not to get it before Scorsese gave the clue. The film is wise enough not to sugarcoat Frank's action, but we see him from his relationship with his mentor and father-figure played again by an extraordinary Pesci. Both are men of a few words so they choose them carefully, sometimes they elevates them to unlimited and delightful euphemistic summits, sometimes they just talk like gangsters (you know "the thing or the other thing", "which Tony?", the "summer" line echoing the "how am I funny?" scene etc.). Sure Marty has wised up, and so did we, but there's something cozy and "enjoyable" about the film, we feel like family watching it.
But if "Mean Streets" had Johnny Boy and "Goodfellas" Tommy De Vito, "The Irishman" had Jimmy Hoffa. As usual with Pacino, and he's my favorite actor, it takes a while to appreciate his work, you always feel as he's at the edge of overacting a little or letting some weird reading pop up erupting, with that rapsy voice of his and his menacing eyes even when he's friendly, but no, after a few minutes, I was at ease because despite the showiness of his role (speeches, anger, monologues, intimidations), we could perceive the vulnerability behind his tough charismatic faÃ§ade, Pacino can be heartbreaking in this film.
So is De Niro. His Frank is just a guy whose job has brought a sense of belonging that gave a full meaning to his life (more than his family and his daughter Peggy played by Anna Paquin), that's what we all long for, belonging and meaning. In a certain way, that's what drove Hoffa to wherever his body is, some would call it hubris: he didn't listen, his death is tragic because inevitable but also stupid because avoidable, but as Hoffa repeated, it's his union and he couldn't imagine being stepped over. Ironically what also drove these two men was friendship, Frank and "Russ", Jimmy and Frank, but to one friendship he owed more, nothing personal, strictly business.
"The Irishman" concludes on that deep and melancholic note that makes you wonder what the purpose of all this was after all, but so do many Martin's movies that starts with a glamorous and flashy observation of the mob world even (some inserted titles giving us the eventual fate of a local mobster reminded me of these boxing stats appearing in the "Creed" film) but at the end everyone dies, with more or less natural causes and what's left are regrets, pity and sorrow... the stuff Scorsesian greatness is made off.
I don't want to mix this review with Oscar considerations, I'll just use one of the film's irresistible euphemisms and hope that the Academy won't demonstrate a failure to show appreciation...