A Flawed Masterpiece

Rating: 8/10 (28 November 2019)

The Irishman follows Frank Sheeran, a hitman for the Italian mob from the 50s to the 70s, and his friendships with union boss Jimmy Hoffa and mob boss Russ Bufalino, all culminating in Jimmy's assassination, and Frank's reflection in old age. It has all the hallmarks of a gangster movie that Scorsese does best, the hits, the deals, the respect, the broken families, but without all the glamour. The Irishman marks the end of gangster movies, putting a cap on a previously vibrate genre with a story altogether more sombre and depressing while equally as epic in scope.
The movie does everything it can to strip the glamour away from being a gangster, depicting Frank as a soulless foot soldier without a thought for himself, and ultimately the last one left, to die alone of old age and the lack of dignity that entails. Everybody gets old and dies, even gangsters, and all of life's successes don't mean much when you can barely stand by yourself, you need help going to the loo, and your family have abandoned you to live their own lives. Respect means nothing when there's no-one left to respect or to be respected by.
Talking of old age, I want to use this opportunity to segue into my biggest criticism of the entire movie. De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci are all fantastic actors, and they've all proven that time and time again over the years. They're true icons not just to the gangster genre, but to acting as a whole. Problem is they're all in their late seventies. Late in the movie this is fine as the characters start reaching that age, but early on, despite the untold millions spent on digitally de-aging all three of them, it's not enough. CGI doesn't mask how they move or posture themselves, and they move and posture themselves like a bunch of guys in their late seventies. All the de-aging does is smooth out their wrinkles and give them digital facelifts. At no point is this displacement more apparent than when Frank, in his late 30s, beats up a shop clerk for pushing his young daughter. De Niro no longer has the physicality required to move like a man in his late 30s, and so we get late-seventies chicken arms as he struggles to land the kicks and not fall over in the process.
The actual de-aging itself isn't particularly great either. It is nice and subtle and you would barely even notice it was there if you had no idea about it going in, but because it's subtle, it just looks like old men in makeup. The most successful application is a shot of twenty-something Frank in Italy during WWII, but there's no lines to speak, and no facial close-ups to worry about. De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci never look much younger than their 50s even when they're meant to be young men in the primes of their lives. Where all that money and time went I have no idea, but all you have to do is turn on Scarface or Taxi Driver to see how badly they missed the mark.
At three and a half hours long, The Irishman is the longest mainstream movie released in nearly thirty years, and it makes use of every minute and every second. The editing is tight and well-paced, making those three and a half hours relatively fly by. But the film is not immune to the problems of such a long runtime. Two of the most important scenes in the entire movie go on too long and come so late in the movie that they feel like a drag even if they aren't. Frank's celebration is a sombre scene of warnings and telling glances, exhibiting some fantastic acting moments between De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci, but by the end it starts to feel like gossiping girls with 'he said this' and 'he said that', and goes on so long that it feels meandering and labours the point.
Similarly the final forty minutes or so happens after the climax of the movie. While these are arguably the most important moments in the entire movie, it likewise goes on and on and feels like labouring the point, which can feel anti-climatic after Hoffa's disappearance. You get the big climax the entire three hours of the film has been building up to and, wait, there's still another forty minutes to go as we slowly watch the remaining gangsters get sent to prison, age, and unceremoniously pass away. Don't misunderstand me, these scenes are important, full of great moments, and the movie would be less satisfying without them, but they drag on too long for a movie that's already a huge time investment.
On the acting front, De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci all nail it. Pesci in particular offers potentially the performance of his long career, playing Russ in such a cold and calm demeanour that would be alien to previous Pesci characters, but arguably being way more threatening than even Tommy DeVito. Pacino has some great moments, particularly whenever he berates other people, but also some of the smaller, more intimate moments opposite De Niro. De Niro is also great of course, but I can't help but feel a little miscast as the 6'4 physically imposing Frank Sheeran. Stephen Graham is also a highlight as Tony Pro, and plays off Pacino and the rivalry between the two characters really well. Finally the last one of note is Anna Paquin as the grown-up version of Peggy, Sheeran's second daughter. She gets one line in the entire film, but up until that point her silent glances speak louder than anything else, and her one line becomes ever more poignant because of it.
I feel like The Irishman has been a hard movie for me to judge. It's such a long movie that I'd forgotten many of the earlier moments by the time the film finished. Gangster epics like Godfather Part II and Once Upon a Time in America have always been difficult movies for me to get into, whether I liked them or not, and The Irishman is no different. It's a landmark film that won't be forgotten any time soon, and could easily be considered Scorsese's magnum opus, but I couldn't blind myself to the film's flaws, and found there was too much to distract me from what would otherwise be quite an intellectually challenging movie. I give it a solid 8/10, because ultimately its flaws aren't enough to detract how important this film is and will be to the gangster genre.