Watch with an intermission

Rating: 8/10 (15 December 2019)

3.5 hour runtime. Holy crap. I love that this film had enough to say that it needed that long, but by the end it felt like I was marathoning a TV show. This was compounded by the fact that it lacked any noticeable 3 act structure. Major downsides of The Irishman were its failure to fork some extra money over to CGI when it counted. I can remember a scene where a glass window breaks and it looked awful. Positives included a palpable sense of inclusion and family that comes with an Irishman being accepted into the ranks of the Italian mafia. We all long to see and feel this inclusion so it always seems to be an intrinsically good thing. Also, I appreciated the inclusion of that empty feeling elders must get when their stories and life tales fall on the deaf ears of youth. The theme of finality manifests as a cold and lonely finality for our main character.