Tinseltown old timers try it one last time (and really should not have bothered)

Rating: 5/10 (8 February 2020)

Hollywood thrives on cliches: in many ways they are its lifeblood. But the Tinseltown moguls shouldn't be castigated. The moviegoer thrives on cliches, too, and if a mogul is criticised for serving up at the umpteenth time cliche 123/A he or she is perfectly entitled to the defence that 'that's what the punter wants'. They want predictable, they want to see the same storyline over and over again. Give them something halfway original (as in all that dubious European art stuff) and many just run scared: they want to see the world on the edge of destruction saved by the love of a good woman for a man who only had to find that brave core he didn't know was there. Or something.
Cliches are great both for directors and writers and for moviegoers. Cliches mean that neither has to think at all, just fill in the boxes and trace the story from A to Z. They are not required to,use their nut a little. To be fair, if the wind were to blow in the opposite direction and the moviegoing public suddenly decided it won't settle for anything else but pure originality, there is enough talent in Hollywood which could supply that demand. Back in the real world, however, the growth of a demand for originality is as likely as Britain's queen ditching Phil the Greek and marrying Pope Francis. So cliches rule.
I happen not to like cliches. After a lifetime working in newspapers I have had it to here with them. At first they amuse, then they amuse because their use is so predictable. Finally, they irritate as little can irritate.
One Hollywood cliche I spotted years ago and is about as entertaining as a day in the rain without a coat is the 'old timers (whether soldiers, football players, mercenaries, a band or what the hell you like) are summoned to come together for one last time and prove they can still cut it'. And of course they always do. 'There's life in the old dogs yet' is the message. and ageing, geriatric moviegoers leave the cinema relieved that they aren't quite you dead (which, of course, they are, but sshh...)
Invariably the old timers in the 'old timers' film are all themselves old timer actors whose day came and went quite long ago, but who, like the characters they portray on screen, want to prove to the up-and-coming young turks that they can still cut it, boy, we're still around. Well, of course, they aren't. Such films are - for me at least - and embarrassment like watching your grandad on the dancefloor who has no idea how bloody ridiculous he looks.
The film that always comes to mind when I think of the 'old timers' cliche is The Wild Geese: old timers Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris, Hardy KrÃ¼ger and Stewart Grainger strut their stuff as mercenaries called out of retirement to make more money for the Hollywood moguls.
It was the old timers cliche which very soon came to mind when I say The Irishman. Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel and, sad but true, the director Martin Scorsese go through the motions of strutting their stuff and are as convincing as a cheap Walmart toupee.
All five do their stuff, the stuff we once loved when it was fresh and new, but which is no longer fresh and new, not by a million miles. And it certainly doesn't help that all of them, Pesci, De Niro, Pacino and Keitel look way over 70, even when they are supposed to be young thugs on the make - the digital whatever just doesn't work.
In many ways the worst offender is Scorsese in that he is an intelligent filmmaker who should have known better. But he didn't and he pretty much serves up a parody of a Scorsese film: if you've seen Goodfellas and Casino, you've seen The Irishman.
The 'trademark' tracking shots, the convoluted storyline, the freeze-frame to give a brief biographical outline of a newly introduced character, the 'cool' violence, the voiceover - it's all there and it's all a bit sad in that what was once exciting is now terrible old hat.
You might be part of the 90pc who like cliches served up lukewarm, who will applaud a faded nightclub singer warbling off-key because you are nostalgic and you like his hits when you were younger. That's not me. With all respect to Mr Scorsese, he really should have left well alone.