Not His Best Work... At All.

Rating: 4/10 (30 November 2019)

Overly-long to the point of indulgence... presumably backed by Netflix executives egging Scorsese on to deliver a final masterpiece and stick the proverbial middle-finger to the larger film studios. Fail.
The Hoffa story has been covered before and Nicholson beats Pacino easily. Pacino dials in a watered-down version of the excellent 'Scent of a Woman'. And a haircut doesn't make a character! Fail.
De Niro looks downright freaky when de-aged and there are several scenes where it's excruciatingly obvious that he is an actor in his 70s, in poor shape, trying to portray a thug who is decades younger. The grocery store scene for example... painfully bad film-making. Fail.
The inclusion of Anna Paquin makes absolutely no sense at all. With virtually no dialogue and adding nothing to the story, her talent is completely wasted. Fail.
Furthermore, the character of Peggy irritated me the entire movie. Are we supposed to be watching the movie through her eyes? Should we feel sorry for her? Why did she have such an aversion to Pesci's character? Why did she cut off her father? What did she see? What did she actually know? Did her sisters feel the same way? Silence and long stares. Fail.
If you're going to stuff a film full of A-list actors the story, characterisation and acting must be A-grade too. In too many scenes I found myself pulled out of the movie and watching the actors themselves... it's irritating! Fail.
One thing I liked? Stunning period cars, harking back to a time when they were extravagant works of art.
Ultimately, there is simply no pay-off to this movie. The tension doesn't build to any kind of gratifying conclusion. I felt no sense of empathy or sense of loss for the last man standing: old, decrepit, lonely, and fading away in an old people's home. I felt no nostalgia for the bygone age of mobsters, thugs, and crime families that we've come to love in films like Goodfellas, The Untouchables, and others. This felt like a bloated, filler-episode, of a TV series running out of ideas, and overdue for cancellation.
Sorry, Mr Scorsese. Some of your movies are of the highest calibre. This was... a fail.