A big old "meh" to memberberries

Rating: 5/10 (28 November 2019)

Another ensamble piece from Scorsese is always a great reason to get excited for his films. They have resulted in such classics as Goodfellas, Casino, and the Wolf of Wall Street. However, his latest film The Irishman is kinda a let down on a lot of fronts.
Firstly, this is Scorsese's longest film by far, but it never feels as if there is any fully fleshed arc for characters. Even the main character, Frank, feels like he only had a part of his character developed. There a complex story threads and awesome moments of intricate tension, but it does not build the character's complexity in any way, to the point they feel like characatures.
Secondly, this film has the most ok looking cinematography and the most jumbled sound design I have heard in a while. There is a moment where a character is killed off and his dialogue is clipped mid sentance by a gunshot. This is the type of amateur mistake that happens in film school. Even if this is a long movie, it does not give Scorsese any excuse when plenty of other 3 hour films have such attention to detail and this one being quite lazy in others. The cinematography, film is shot on mostly 35mm celluloid and has a few interesting Scorsese stylistic flares (long takes and zooms). But there is some really jarring and out of place digital zooms, as well as random title cards that barely add anything to the film's experience.
Thirdly, the music. Now this is something I was quite frusterated about, because Scorsese usually has a great taste and usage of music through his films. This one is diverse-ish until the last third. Where La Vie En Rose (which has been played in film near to death) is played, then the irishman theme is spammed as well as In The Still of the Night.
Speaking of which, there are so many callbacks to Scorsese's other works, that it becomes downright annoying. We get it, you made some awesome movies, get over it and get on with your movie man!
For the good things, cast was pretty fantastic. I wasn't sure how I felt about Pacino'a accent, but it grew on me. The story itself and the production design where well detailed. And the deaging effects were not noticable. I even liked the way the film ended without going into spoilers.
Overall, it was a big meh and it will not be on the top of the year list. It was overhyped and not one of Scorsese's best films by a strech. If you love all things by him, I'm sure you'll love this. But if you want a good detailed character study, you are better off rewatching Goodfellas or waiting in the later weeks for netflix to release A Marriage Story.