Worth the wait.

Rating: 10/10 (28 September 2019)

After anticipating this like a madman for nearly a decade, I'm glad to confirm that all my hopes and dreams came true and it's a masterpiece.
The storytelling structure is mostly in the same vein as GoodFellas and Casino, but with much more room to breathe (which makes sense when you consider the runtime). Less needle drops, more contemplation. Many brilliant scenes, some very intense moments, an insane amount of hilarious moments... and of course Scorsese directs the absolute hell out of it.
Frank Sheeran, while being a bit of an enigma, is easily the most introspective Scorsese mob character ever. And the final 30 minutes or so are an aftermath we've never seen before in a Scorsese crime film.
And De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci are all absolutely brilliant. The talk of De Niro being internal and Pacino being external was kind of right, but De Niro also has many funny, charismatic, and noticeably intense moments. Arguably his best moment comes in what may be the most awkward phone conversation in the history of film. Pacino, as you'd expect, nails all of the Hoffa speeches but also has rarely been this funny. And flawlessly portrays Hoffa's desperation (or... brazen lack thereof). Pesci is nowhere near the "go f- your mother mode" many were probably expecting. He's kind of the wise old man of the movie, while also being an ice cold mob boss. If he stays in retirement after this, it'll certainly be one of the GOAT swan songs. The film heavily relies on Sheeran's relationship with both Hoffa and Bufalino, and it wouldn't succeed nearly as well as it does without these three actors.
Stephen Graham, Bobby Cannavale, and the legend Harvey Keitel are the only other cast members that really get a chance to shine... and they all bring it with limited screentime.
And enough can't be said about Thelma's editing here. The film somehow flies by while also feeling like a lifetime... Frank's lifetime. I'm not sure the power of the final act would hit quite as hard if you weren't somewhat exhausted by everything that came before it.
The culmination of many careers, and a film for the ages.