Nicholson Was So Much Better

Rating: 1/10 (7 December 2019)

All right look. I enjoy watching the occasional films and shows about mob/gangster activity once in a while. I know that these are all subhuman scumbags that deserve nothing but contempt. But it is entertaining enough. The Departed, Casino, Goodfellas, Hoffa, The Godfather films, Blood in Blood Out. I enjoy the early Bogart and Cagney movies as well. Edmond O'Brien was a favorite of mine too. Sigh... then there is this.. this three and a half hour THING..
Putting aside the ridiculous CGI that looked like nothing but a bunch of gratuitous botox injections, this film sucked in virtually every aspect besides production. 165 million for THIS??? De Niro and Pacino played themselves yet again (is there a record for doing this sort of thing?) The script was soooooo poor. My God! How many times can these characters go back and forth while saying THE SAME THING AND NOT PROGRESSING THE PLOT! Was there a plot?? De Niro must be the most overrated actor in recent memory. The scene where he stomps on a grocer's hand had me in tears. He looked like a geriatric who was desperately trying not to lose his balance. Scorsese is definitely partially to blame for this. How that entire scene did not fall to the cutting room floor is beyond me. De Niro has the same acting style since the 80s. Eyebrows up, corners of the mouth up. Eyebrows up, corners of the mouth down. Then he lowers his eyebrows and does the same thing. He laughs the same way as well. This is acting? I already mentioned that Pacino was Pacino in this. Good God was he ever. He was 100% Pacino and 0% Hoffa which equates to PaSTINKO! Aren't these actors supposed to actually TRY to be like the characters they are portraying? Hoffa was a real person. There is plenty of footage of the man talking, interviews, etc. What were Pacino and Scorsese thinking? Scorsese just lets Pacino HAM it up scene after scene after scene. Pacino is another actor who I find overrated as hell. He did some decent work in the 70s but he has also coasted since And Justice For All. The man just yells and looks bizarrely awkward while doing it. Staring off into space while bug eyed. Three and a half hours of this. Boring scenes, boring dialogue "Did you talk to him? He did that? Talk to him again. Set up a meeting. You think so? Yeah. I dunno. You really think so? I dunno. Lets think about it. I thought about it. Really? Yeah. I think so." And on.. and on.. and on.... Was Scorsese on a mission to murder the Mob genre with this? These cats need to retire. Just call it a career.. Quite honestly this was extremely painful to sit through. I had to break this thing up into three parts. This film offers nothing but a bunch of boring scenes and an awkward geriatric clown trying to pass himself off as Jimmy Hoffa. Shame on you Marty. You let this happen.
Hoffa was done already. Danny De Vito directed Jack Nicholson in 1992. You want a real glimpse of how Hoffa actually talked and acted like? Watch that instead. Why was the Irishman even made? The answer is anybody's guess. AVOID AVOID AVOID... unless you need to get a good nap in immediately.