Some Great Actors Past Their Primes in a Recycled Story

Rating: 7/10 (30 November 2019)

I could spend a few paragraphs waxing poetic about the merits of the film, about the story of Hoffa, but you can read all that in some of these other flowery reviews by paid shills and perhaps by folks who long to be paid shills.
They couldn't get DeNiro and Pacino together for anything great outside of Heat, but here they are jammed into this mess of a film. Pesci is his normal great self, and he and Al carried the film. Robert needs to be put out to pasture. He played Robert DeNiro playing Robert DeNiro. If you've seen him in just about anything else, you've seen him here. No emotional range, maybe I assumed some feelings at times when he was feeling some remorse about his role, but he's basically a stuttering guy in the film like in real life, and repeats himself just like then. Someone doing a DeNiro impression would be able to do the same role.
The story feels like an epic.. but it's not really interesting. Sure these guys were very powerful in their day, and they died old men in nursing homes if they weren't shot in the face by the others. A lot of code, innuendo and assumptions were made and the audience was left to guess what they were talking about. It's as if you weren't a made guy so you weren't in on it.
It really felt a bit like Ocean's 11, with the inside jokes between actors who knew each other, cared for each other but didn't care at all about the audience. I was the 3rd wheel in this reunion flick. I just wish they picked a better subject, maybe fiction.. something that allowed Robert DeNiro to be himself instead of that stupid CGI red face offering they did where Robert looked older than Pesci even though Pesci was calling him "kid". I couldn't suspend disbelief enough to get around that crazy antic, and the fact the director allowed it just shows that they know the audience will buy anything with that cast.
Other than Bob's part, the casting was great. What a line up, 10 years ago this would have been impossible due to the fee each of these actors would command. You have 3 or 4 leading actors playing support roles. I guess when you have DeNiro and Pacino as the main characters, you don't complain about your part and likely many actors jumped at the chance to be in the film. Still, it was too long and I didn't come away feeling anything other than tired for watching it. I didn't care about Bob's character, or Hoffa, or anyone else.. even Sookie Stackhouse and the guy who imprisoned Jessie Pinkman.