"You people!" - Film versus Fact

Rating: 6/10 (3 December 2019)

"You people" is a memorable line in "The Irishman"--slur against Italians. However, the term could also refer to anyone too easily duped into thinking that having big-name actors and a celebrated director necessarily combine to make an excellent film. You people, are you willing to spend almost 3 1/2 hours of your life that you will never get back watching a film that doesn't really cut it? OK, OK. watching DeNiro, Pacino and Pesci in anything is a big pull, I admit. But sitting through this particular film experience is like getting excited about watching three world-class swimmers get into a pool for a lap together, and seeing the pool turn into a half-mile river of sludge with no finish line that you can see, seemingly going nowhere. The movie is too long, too unfocused, too aimless, and, all too often, a waste of talent.
And yet--the failure of "The Irishman" is not for lack of background material. The source text, I Heard You Paint Houses, by Charles Brandt, details how Frank Sheeran, an associate of Philly mob boss Russ Bufalino, came to turn on close ally Jimmy Hoffa. And in a telling 2015 interview on Click On Detroit (amp-clickondetroit-com) Brandt builds a solid case for his story built on five years worth of extensive talks with Sheeran and coordination with the FBI. Why would Sheeran talk to a former prosecutor and professional interrogator, as Brandt likes to call himself? It makes sense: Brandt worked behind the scenes to get the former boss' prison sentence for labor racketeering reduced from 32 years to 9 on medical grounds and built a relationship from there. In addition to taking Sheeran's word for events, Brandt has well documented reasons to prove that Sheeran killed "Crazy Joe Gallo" in a public clam house (a witness later verified the killer), the Sheeran delivered a truckload of arms to Dallas just before the Kennedy assassination on behalf of the Mob, and that Hoffa was lured into a private home in Detroit where he was shot at close range by Sheeran, with the body later cremated by Mafia soldiers The FBI subpoenaed Brandt's interview tapes and had access to the same information about Hoffa's disappearance. In fact, according to Brandt, the "whodunnit" part of the missing person's case was solved early on, but with a missing body and uncooperative witnesses, prosecution was impossible. As of 2015, the investigation was still officially ongoing.
So, yes, this and more are all spelled out in the film. But dramatically, viewers want to see the central conflict set up in the first twenty minutes of the film, and we're left hanging. Early on we get that Sheeran (DeNiro) is an ordinary truck driver and death-hardened former combat vet pulled into organized crime via the Teamster's Union. Along the way we see him as 40 - no, 30, no --at one point called a "kid" despite clearly being middle-aged (CGI just can't turn back the clock for men in their 70's: the poor aging effect makes for a confusing timeline). He enters the film married, meets a waitress who smiles at him, and apparently 20 seconds later is divorced leading a new life (women in this film are decorations, child producers and occasionally the ones who cry over crime victims.). He bonds with a quietly powerful Cosa Nostra head Russ Bufalino (Joe Pesci), who introduces him to Hoffa (Al Pacino, chronically in a bad mood, except around Sheeran's children). Hoffa is portrayed as charismatic, but a hothead. His loose lips about how Teamster funds are being used and abused ignite flaring tempers during his campaign to regain the union presidency, temporarily lost during a 5-year prison term. Bufalino is alarmed, and so are other Mafiosi. But despite warnings, Hoffa refuses to put a lid on it.
At last--about two hours in, the conflict comes more clearly into play. DeNiro's chronically deep frown are what the film uses to suggest inner turmoil. A few mumbled words at an awards dinner that our hero perhaps appreciates Hoffa's support and patronage. But then again, maybe not, because he agrees to do "what has to be done" without resistence when pressed by Bufalino. So, the story arc is more like a slight hill. A car ride to a wedding with the wives, whose main contribution to the story is to smoke while waiting for their spouses to finish criminal conversations, turns into an overnight at a hotel followed by a plane ride, a car ride, and a visit to a house by Hoffa and Sheeran, with only one emerging.
Throughout the film I looked for any evidence that Sheeran regretted his crimes. He seems to shrug them off, even in last-chance conversations with a priest during his final days in a nursing home. The truth was something quite different: he deeply regretted his crimes, confessed them to a priest, and afterwards stopped eating. effectively ending his own life about 5 weeks later.
Immediately after I watched The Irishman, I happened to find Godfather 2 on TV. There was no comparison. The actors aren't to be blamed for what age does to us: DeNiro and Pacino were hot in 1974, and they are now grandfathers. But the earlier film quickly and deftly laid out moral dilemmas and explained people's motives in resolving them. We were on board, ultimately, with all affairs Corleone, even when what they did involved breaking a law and taking lives. They were fully fleshed characters, sympathetic and believable. They became all of these things in two tightly woven, interconnected plots saturated in local culture and first-class storytelling.
Maybe it's impossible to remake any film in the shadow of The Godfather trilogy and expect it to compare. And maybe Netflix and Director Scorcese, should be commended for trying. But I found the effort a disappointment. And I was one of "those people" who had high hopes.
12-3-19